Ohayo gozaimasu everyone welcome from
Japan in today's video we're going to be giving you guys a little bit of
an Insight of how our car shopping experience was here in Japan
seat belt from the left side hi hi hi if you're just joining us we're a
little American Family who've moved from the US to Germany and now to Japan for my work could
not be more excited to start our life here in Adventures but with that there's a lot of news and
that includes vehicle shopping or car shopping so we're going to give you guys a a little bit of
insight in this video of how our car shopping experience has been tell you how incredibly
surprised we are and how well maintained the vehicles are here and how cheap yes how cheap all
of the vehicles have been today we are going car shopping we've been looking online for a lot of
Vans I never saw as many van people but they're actually really affordable here in Japan and
almost all of the Americans are driving them apparently there's a ton of cars that go in
the auctions like every day and so there's a lot of choices and we can be a little I guess
particular about what color we want or what year because there's bound to be so many that come
through so um that's kind of nice what do you think the sun is making me sneeze a lot is what
I'm thinking but it's exciting to see some bands and it's more promising that we're going to be
able to find one for a lot less but still in really good condition and lower miles than any
other vehicle that we've ever bought which is also nice these two cars that we just looked at
are the Voxy what is the Voxy Toyota I don't know it's a Voxy and then the other one's a Nissan
Sera and I definitely like the Sera it's nice because it has like a middle seat that you can
slide up to the front or in the middle seat and that's kind of convenient and then the very back
too can slide up and back which is nice making it so that we have more storage in the back if
we need and I scooted the back seats all the way up and the middle seats all the way back it's
tighter space but it's nice because then you can maximize your your storage and your capacity
with people I don't know it's kind of [Music] fun the belt for do you like this car [Music] yeah [Music] we've been excited because just about an
hour ago I dropped off the paperwork to go get our vehicle and you guys we are minivan people now
it's going to be a lot of fun to explore Japan in our new van new meaning still a 14-year-old
van but a lot of cars here in Japan don't have a lot of miles on them or a lot of kilometers
it's it's kind of an interesting like Market to be in because the cars are a lot cheaper in
much better condition and a lot less miles so it's kind of interesting a few other things to
update you on I got my driver's test my license done last week Ris is going to be doing hers
tomorrow and we will both be ready and legal to drive here in Japan what's interesting about my
position over here we are on a sofa agreement so that means we don't have to pass like what the
Japanese locals would have to do for a driving test or written test um this is a very condensed
version um um but pretty much allows those who have a valid driver's license with experience to
be able to enjoy driving privileges here in Japan honestly this one was more of uh you sat down
for a few- hour course you had to pass an exam they had study materials and um of course driving
on the opposite side of the road is a learning curve and so it'll take a little bit there but
I'm really excited and I'm happy to know that a lot of Japanese drivers obey the laws it slower
speeds um it's going to be hopefully a really smooth transition into driving there so so now
you got to see a few of the cars that we looked at and ultimately the one that we decided to go
with was the Nissan Serena yes guys we are the proud owners of a minivan to be quite honest we
never really thought that we would be joining the minivan Club but after looking at the different
vehicles and the sizes of what we had here we were actually quite impressed with this one and
we decided to yeah take the punch and go for it so let's give you guys a quick tour of the van so
for starters in case you don't know Japan drives on the left side of the road so coming from the
US and from Germany we're on right side driving this is definitely something we knew was going to
be an adjustment but it wasn't the first time that we've ever driven on the left side of the road
we did a few weeks in New Zealand but that was 5 years ago 6 years ago so we'll open up here
take a look pretty basic one thing Risa and I have both mentioned is that we quite enjoy having
a really large windshield and at the same time we have a space up in between the seats here which
definitely makes it seem more roomy rather than having just a middle console there so the turning
signals is on the right side compared to what it is in the states and then the windshield wipers
is on the left side so yes there have been a few times where we've tried to turn and we've like
flipped up the left side windshield wipers are going on a clear sunny day like today kind of a
little bit of difference and also what's a really nice feature about this is there are buttons here
to open and close the side doors um easily adjust your mirrors which is pretty standard and a pretty
basic system like a navigation system moving on to the middle section now honestly one feature I
didn't really care to have was automatic doors but I will have to say it has been very nice see what
I did there I do have to say it's been very nice because having the doors opening by themselves
it's kind of lazy I know but at the same time it is really nice moving on to here into this next
section ooh this is actually quite nice and roomie these seats as well they move forward and back
which is really nice got the car seats right here this middle seat right here is actually really
really nice because right now it sits in the middle between these two seats it goes actually
like this and slides all the way up to the front middle section so you could have three in the
front and then these could be like pilot seats I think that's the term for them you can even
pull it from the back too it goes all the way up you got the driver seats up there and you got
a space right here that you can walk in and out of especially if you have people in the third row
so let's take it to the back have the seats folded up on the sides so it's really nice it has a hook
attachment that goes up on the side and the legs they fold in and out for Space Storage and they
are able to hook in nicely to the anchors below into the floor and not only that they actually
move forward and backwards as well which allows you to have a little bit more flexibility for how
the seats are and much space you have between them it's quite versatile and I like how the seats
fold up on the sides because it allows us to have storage here underneath having every single
seat sliding them able to fold up on the side here and extra storage was one of the major reasons why
we decided to get it we definitely could have gone with a bigger van and honestly we thought about
it at first but then after looking at this one and realizing how small some of the areas for
parking and how small a lot of the streets are going to be we're glad we didn't go any bigger
although you could we're going to be using this for more of like our bigger trips maybe when we
go camping longer distances and especially when we have family and friends visiting so it was nice
for us to be able to have this to know that we can fit a few more people with us still be able to go
and travel to places that we won't on train we're definitely going to be getting a second vehicle
that's more compact for more of our day-to-day and smaller short trips because it's just going to be
smaller and easier to drive around we definitely have this little sticker here which means that
you have been driving for less than one year in Japan whether that means you're a new driver or
you're like us and your new into the country this is just a magnet so it's nice you can just move
it anywhere you want a lot of Americans drive this and I think it's notably so because it's a
minivan it's got a lot of space and Americans we love our space am I right quite honestly it is
a nice and cheap vehicle for what you're getting one thing we definitely have to talk on is the
price for these vehicles over here in Japan now this is a 2010 Nissan Serena and it has 140,000
km so do your math for everyone who likes miles I want you guys to guess how much this vehicle
cost I thought it'd be really fun to have all of you guys put a guess in in how much we spent on
this fan 2010 Nissan Serena 140,000 km it had like brand new inspections and everything done right
before we purchased it from a used dealer pretty much everything looks in really good condition so
put your comments down below and then later on in the video we'll share you what we actually paid
for and you can tell us whether you think we got a good deal or not to give you more of an idea of
some of the vehicle prices here in Japan there was a brand new camper van that we saw uh a pretty
small one so probably two people but we saw it out there and it was roughly $15,000 that really
surprised us because I think that came with like all the sleeping and the eating Arrangements
there might have been some add-ons like for what kind of stove and what kind of things you
wanted to put in there but honestly we were quite surprised my question is this still why do all the
vehicles have such low mileage still it doesn't make sense for example I saw a 2012 Nissan note
that had like 23,000 M on it and I have no idea how a car has that few miles I don't know you
answer to me maybe it's just because people didn't really drive it besides just to work and
then they took public transportation everywhere but it blew my mind that a car could be 12 years
old and have only 2,000 miles per year on it it was just kind of crazy to me let's get out of here
and we'll show you what Japanese roads look like but don't worry this is not the first time that
we've been driving we have had a little bit of practice get our GPS going here try not to
pull for my seat Bel on the left hand side here yeah one time I was sitting in the back
by Noah and Willa and all of a sudden I see Tanner's hand just going like this and then
I realized who's reaching for the other seat belt and he finally realized and we had a good
chuckle about that so of course prior to getting our car and driving it we had to get a driver's
license and here on base they actually provide us with like a 3-day course it's mandatory
that everyone takes this and they cover like the cultural differences the language etc etc
like there's a lot of information covered with information that's pertinent to on base and
then just living here in Japan hello or good afternoon good evening goodbye thank you with that is learning how to drive in
the safety rules of regulations here right after the class actually we took like a 30
minute test like 50 questions and we had to get 80% or above we both passed first
time woo most of the people were passing honestly start the ignition baby listen to
a purr and seat belt from the left side over to the right let's go go every car we've
got to has like this GPS system of store we have a backup camera huh bab Yes except for
it like aims right at the ground so there's no sense of like even using it to see how far
away from things you are besides like the curb we just left base and came to a stop
and that is one major difference between driving here in Germany versus Japan there's
a lot of stop signs and you have to come to a complete stop not going to lie I kind of miss
those yield signs they're definitely nice and there's not very many roundabouts here and
there was a lot in Germany this is going to be our furthest Excursion today to Ikea so
maybe we'll see more okay so let's hit him with it what are some of the main things from
the driving test Tanner that you remember and obviously there's you know characters
in Japanese and they won't always be in English so you have to know what the stop
sign looks like like the characters that are there for it upside down triangle with a
looking H the Y it's just the yield [Music] side [Music] [Music] [Applause] yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] our car is telling us that we need an Etc
reader cuz we're about to go under toll and the ETC card here makes it so it's cheaper
so it's really nice cuz tolls definitely add up we have a place to put the card we just
don't have the card yet Visa this Visa Visa hi yes that was 750 yen and we are in Yokohama now
um we took the first toll road just probably five minutes outside of Yokosuka so that was our first
time on the expressway the speeds on this road is now it's testing me 100 this one technically is 80
but a lot of the major expressways are the maximum is going to be 100 km an hour so it definitely is
a lot slower driving than we're used to in Germany because non Autobahn roads in general if they
weren't like posted with anything they were like 100 km so they were like the fastest that you can
go in even on our base it's like 40 km and then off of base is what 60 mostly 40 but 60 yeah 40
to 60 so we're driving much slower here and then the other thing that really stood out to me when
we learned about the driving stuff is that cars can pass each other in one lane on like smaller
roads and I just thought that was crazy that it is allowed to pass without you know a marker or
anything everywhere that we've lived it's you're not legally allowed to do that and I don't know
here it's considered more normal I guess I'll have to be extra alert on my right hand side to
see if someone's going to pass I'm going slow enough I don't know we'll see we already talked
about stopping but one thing we wanted to mention was just stopping at railroad tracks it's like
mandatory they're actually quite frequent that's why public transportation is so great and amazing
here in Japan is because everything's so connected and they're very timely but with that there's a
lot of train tracks I found and we haven't even got out there that much but I just feel like
we've spent a lot of time like waiting for the trains to come that's definitely a con to being in
a car rather than on the train that it's waiting for we're headed to Yokohama if that wasn't
mentioned this is a city that is south of Tokyo and it's a very large city and it has amazing
views from the bay and it's known for like its waterfront as well as like their fireworks show
back on New Year's Eve they had a really big fireworks show we thought about going instead
we did something really cool we actually have to put some of the footage here for you guys to
see what we did for New Year's Eve um we went to a Buddhist temple and a shrine and we got to see
some really cool lights there and that was just a really amazing experience to be able to to
see what a lot of Japanese people do for New Year's Eve where they go and how they're you know
celebrating the new year with different religions [Applause] it was a really cool experience
for us and one that we'll definitely remember yet another tunnel there are a lot of
them here where we live it's so mountainous and hilly that we're always going under a tunnel
it seems they're fairly short though I'm not going to lie it feels kind of weird to be in
the van club now I never ever saw myself as having a minivan um and I don't think that
it's something will continue when we go back to the States however it's going to be fun
to experience it and I've got to say because parking spots are smaller here it's nice to have
sliding doors especially with babies where I'm already carrying like a car seat um and that's
tight enough that I don't have to worry about the car door swinging open and you know not
having enough space to fit in the car seat so it is a big perk man we really got to get that
ETC card also it is super nice how much space this place has we can keep our strollers open and
just lift them up and slide them in and shut the door so although it's not hard to like break
it down because there's room we don't have to so maybe we'll become more lazy with that I don't
know but it is a nice little perk um and there's plenty of space you can fit like two strollers
and some groceries in here and just have a lot of room dang these things are all over I know
it's already going to be an expensive trip just to come here we're already over like a th000
Yen already this morning see how much this one is hi hi hi another 130 another dollar down the
drain although I will say maybe that contributes to how cheap the cars are here is because if
you're going to have a car and right on the toll roads they already know it's going to be expensive
so maybe they don't want to double penalize where am I going that's the hard part here
getting used to how many turns and Roads and ramps like this is spaghetti
Bowl right here it's kind of cool but okay so driving on the left side of the
road some of the things I've definitely done are turned the windshield wipers on because
I thought I was turning it's on the opposite side that's the major one and then I feel like
I forget that I'm driving on the left side of the road most when I'm backing up from like
being parked sometimes I've been in the right side and I'm like oh my gosh I need to like
move over it's easier when you see people in front of you driving on the left lane but
when there's no one around that is when it gets you well we're finishing out this evening quite
full honestly quite full and yes I'll be able to see hopefully the whole way home we literally
spent the entire day here and wow I forget how much how much time it takes to do this Ris you
told me we weren't prepared enough to come here um but yeah we literally have spent here since
10:00 this morning and it's now 8:00 so it has been a full day here at IKEA so much that we've
had not lunch but lunch and dinner but to say the least we're happy that we have the van because we
had to pick up a bed for us and we had to pick up another like cabinet for our kitchen storage area
and um of course when you go through Ikea you see things that you're just like oh yeah we needed
to get this we needed to get that and before you know it you have a van full of stuff we're going
to be driving the rest of the way home tonight in the dark but it all fits we're all going to be
able to sit in there safely and make our way home now and I don't know about you but I'm pretty
impressed at it was able to fit every single piece okay all but one piece on one of
these trolleys one thing we didn't really think about when we went to Ikea was well we
didn't have 100% game plan of everything we wanted but the second part is now we have to
store everything because we can't move into our house for a little bit so don't know what
we were thinking being too proactive sometimes is a bad thing all right now to share with you
guys how much we spent on our van the total cost that we bought this from a used car dealership
8seater 2010 Nissan Serena with 14 40,000 Mi was $2600 yeah $2,600 and I say it like that
because in my mind if we were to look at this in the states I would think it would be
easily $10,000 um for a van with this low of mileage and in this gr of condition I would
say at least if not more so we felt like it was a really good deal of course we did see
a few Vans posted on just like the used car Lots over here by private users but I also didn't
know a lot of the information about that but are you guys as surprised as we are I mean that was
just something that we were really surprised to find out and uh quite happy of course that does
include having that 2-year Japanese compulsory Insurance done the inspection and also on top
of that we had a new alternator or be it a rebuilt new alternator uh a new pulley belt and
a few other odd and end things fixed on us when they went through the intense inspection so we're
pretty happy having the vehicle now being able to get around I'm really excited to see everyone's
reactions about that uh to see how close people were and if anyone guessed 2,600 on the dot and
we hadn't already told you then kudos to you cuz I would have never guessed thank you so much for
joining today's video guys I hope you enjoyed it we're going to love exploring Japan in our car
and on public transportation if you guys haven't already go ahead and hit the like button and
subscribe to keep following us along here in Japan and as always don't forget to check out our
patreon page if you haven't already [Music] ready
