Wendy's says the square burgers are the key to their success because they don't cut corners. The CEO said that once. lol

It wasn't like he was doing it for his entire life. They should have given him the chance to pay back that 500 yen and just give him a warning. Completely losing the pension sounds like they just want to save some money.

the principal didn't lose pension. he just lost his severance pay. teachers usually get a lot of pension after retirement. he's still 60? so he needs to use his savings for 5 yrs or work another job until he gets pension. a lot of workers in small companies don't get any extra pay when they retire. yes, he lost a lot of money, but he just lost a part of his previleges which other people would never had.

Guys, do a follow up with the coffee story that looks at Japanese online comments with regard to the story. I want to know what the Japanese think about this.

Sweethearts and Sweet Tarts are two different candies. We have something called 'conversation hearts' here around valentine's day, with little messages printed on them. These are the sweethearts or love hearts we have, in little pink boxes.

We have sweathearts in the US. Or atleast something very similar. But its only sold for valentines day. They have short messages like 'i love you' or 'hugs'. However they are nasty, they taste like chalk. There is also a sour version that tastes like sour chalk.😂😂

Hello from Kuwait 😂 Just wanna say offense not taken and never expected I hear Kuwait mentioned in your podcast! I was in London last month and walked across the shop you mentioned. It looks like something a Kuwaiti would own LOL.

I am embarrassed to say it took me way to long to realize Pete was not saying "Q8"

Karaoke room D&D sounds great

Sitting here painting miniatures while listening and then Pete starts talking about Citadel. You should try again Pete, I'm happy to give you a couple suggestions ahah 😄

Congrats on finally hitting 3 million subs. Very much deserved.

Still waiting and hoping for the full version of the closing music!

Am I the only one now imagining Chris forcing Connor to sleep in karaoke bars instead of a hotel on their next Wacky Weekend (of course the next day he needs to Joey to one of the country's top royans to rub it in).

Japan will do this kind of extreme punishments on some measly coffe theft and will give 3 months of house arrest if the same old man touched a kid..... Just mental

I hope you enjoy Philadelphia next week Peet! I haven’t been in a while but I’m nearby that city and I can reccomend the Redding terminal market for food food but it’s a lot of booths of diffeent restaurants. Great way to try to variety of food and support local businesses! Been a few years since I was there last but I enjoyed it. I have a lot of memories going there as a kid. Such good food. I swear it’s near where the convention center is if my memory serves me right. Also I would go to a grocery store to get candy and not a candy store since purely candy stores tend to get more expensive. But yeah enjoy the beauty of Pennsylvania! Maybe even walk by Independence Hall and see the Liberty bell from the window outside since there is like no point to go into the museum if you just want to see it

The thing you'd have to shout while busting in the karaoke place with the D&D people would be something like - Roll me a charisma check! In which you'd roll a 1, and everyone would real life beat yo ass. xD As for the school principal case... my guess is that they are hiding something there. I dunno what it is, it could go both ways, but it's not about the coffee. Let me elaborate a bit for those who don't mind reading long comments. I read about the case on the Asahi Shimbun piece. Ok, so, nothing about this story makes sense. Firing a principal and taking his pension away because of such a small crime is sure to cost far more to the school rather than just reprimanding him. Because obviously, that principal will have to be replaced. If the guy did his job well so far, applying such a harsh penalty on a misdemeanor, I'd see as a crime myself - that's abuse of power. Just to be clear, I know that Japanese law is different and perhaps there isn't a concept of misdemeanor there, but the equivalent of it - a minor crime, etc. But the more likely case considering Japanese culture is that there is something behind this story that the school, school board, principal and people involved are not willing to share. Now, what it actually is can go both ways. Could be a crime far bigger that the school is hiding to save face, could be some power struggle involving someone who wants to take the principal position, could be something else entirely. It's naive to think it's to set an example, even if they are saying this is what it is. Look, I don't see anyone on the Kishida faction committing seppuku for the fundraiser scandal, right? It's not like corruption doesn't exist in Japan, contrary to what some might think. Corruption in Japan is everywhere, in politics, in representative positions, in leadership positions - it's everywhere. But there's also a widespread "saving face" culture in Japan that tends to resort to that sort of thing - things getting hidden away with harsh punishment handed so that one side saves face, and the other pay his/her dues. This is often how scandals gets suppressed and some form of justice gets done in Japan. There has been all sorts of major problems in Japanese schools that have been dealt with this way - sexual abuse cases, power harassment cases, financial fraud cases, a bunch of others. It's just that when it involves a school, there is often a priority in not letting the institution be tarnished by the crime of an employee, or in this case, the principal himself. Again, this is ONE of the possibilities. The other is a conspiracy by the prefecture school board itself, who decided on his penalty. Kinda obvious, but in cases like these the school board has liberty to apply different levels of sanctions depending on what the problem is. What this principal got was basically the worst possible sanction. They are citing past cases that resulted in similar penalties, but it just does not make sense. Perhaps the school board was already in talks to replace the principal, they had some grudge with the guy, or something similar to that. So they just used the thing as an excuse to punish the guy. Now, like I already kinda mentioned - if this is about setting an example to students and saying the guy needs to be a perfect little robot in the height of puritanical and moralist stance, which also does exist in Japan - I think this is not only stupid, but also criminal. It's power harassment, abuse of power. You can't just ignore who knows how many decades of work this principal had to punish him in this manner for a misdemeanor that doesn't even involve the school itself. This is more than obviously a case for reprimand at most. As a tool for teaching, this only teaches bullying, puritanical and moralist crap, authoritarianism, and using the system to run over the rights of people if they commit even the smallest of mistakes. As Chris already put this well, this is Japan, not North Korea. And as I already pointed out, what is the lesson here if when a school principal commits a misdemeanor he gets his life ruined for it, while politicians involved in a huge corruption scandal taking millions from fundraisers and becoming millionaires by fooling people not only are not in jail for it, they are still keeping their positions despite all that? And notice, the corruption scandal has been going on for half a decade or more. It's like, who are you trying to fool there? Nah dude, there's likely to be more on this story. That's what it is.

The stories about the consequences of drug taking is also terrible to hear, they literally ruin lives over there for relatively small breaches like stealing some coffee, it's no doubt causing all kinds of unforeseen nasty consequences because every action has countless consequences, if it's not a proportional re-action, it's not just or good for society.

Wooo new episode

When I first tried Tsukemen on my Japan trip last year, it was one of my favourite meals. I have tried to recreate it over the last year and I think I have finally reached a point where I am happy with my recreation!

Chris, your cat must be a fur ball 😂 so squeezed their slender frame through the slightest of gaps haha 😂

2:40 We have them they're called Sweethearts by Brach's. Sweet Tarts makes hearts during the holidays. So does everyone else. It's fun!

About the Tsukemen, I love having it cold. Cold noodles with a warm/hot broth is perfect! In fact, it's my favourite food in all of Japan (I had it in Kichijoji)

Those lollies you’re talking about have been around in Australia since I was a kid and I’m now 65. I loved them as a kid but haven’t had any for years..

Sitting here painting Citadel miniatures while listening to this podcast, was rather surprising lol

Yep thats a wombat. It poops cubes

“u can” is definitely a love message these days. as in permission. 👀 eh-hem. & we have love hearts in canada. or we did. but i haven’t gone looking for them lately. maybe that’s what i’ve done wrong… 🤔💕💝

I took a year or two to get used to Hershey's chocolate after moving to the US. Now it's my favorite kind. At first it was like expecting a donut when you eat a bagel. I just had to expect a bagel, and bagels are awesome.

About the coffee thing, How does public pension work in Japan? Cause in most developed countries employees with government pensions will pay part of their own pension and the employer (the government) will pay the other part. Then normally they could deny the government part, but they would still have to pay you the part that came from you, or else they are basically stealing your money. Also I hope that the principal will hire a lawyer cause the punisher is way too big for the crime, you don't destroy someone's life for like 3$ theft, they could have assigned him to do community work and maybe little seminar on why you should not do petty theft.

Pete’s following around pensioners idea was terrifying lmao.

The way Natsuki says "wow" reminds me of how big cats say hello "Waaoo!"

Sal I. Vate is my Sicilian uncle on my mother's side. Great guy.

A long long time ago, I use to play D & D with my brother and one of the table top rpgs we played was a Ninja turtle base game.

We have Love Hearts in Norway 🇳🇴

We have candy hearts with messages on them. We buy them for Valentine’s Day. They taste like chalk lol

If Personable Pete is poppin' into Philly, he has to try John's Roast Pork. Best cheese steak in town. If you're feeling fancy stop by Barclay Prime but just know that it's an experience not a cheese steak. Helluva Old Fashioned too!

american chocolate sold by hersheys is made with milk that is treated to sour it because it makes the chocolate stay solid longer when subjected to heat. so unfortunately that is the most popular type of chocolate

I had a similar problem but with cat food. Got to love love heart sweets and any sherbet base, and especially sherbet lemon

Q T = Quick Trip ' is a convince store in this area (Nebraska . USA) has a wide array of candy

Wendy's burgers are square because you can fit more of them on a grill than round burgers. It's purely an efficiency hack, to help keep the grill from being the limiting factor during a lunch or dinner rush. (Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's, wrote about this in his biography.)

We have the pressed sugar chalk heart shaped candies in in the U.S with such messages as be mine and your cute ect.

25:51 yes

laughing way too hard at "napsuki"

I love the Q 80's

Good grief, for a coffee faux pas, they lose their pension. Talk about over-reacting! If they repaid the difference this could have been avoid. Instead, they were treated like terrorists and bank robbers.

Enjoying the banter. To the officials who decided to severely penalize the school principal I say “those without guilt caste the first stone” 🤨

Imagine losing your job over 70 yen/490 yen depending on what you're counting. I'd be pissed

6:52 Good, as it's not safe for human consumption. When those shops were raided, a lot of the sweets were out of date or had illegal chemicals in them.

Now we know where that old Japanese saying, "Gaijin; Duck!" comes from :)

There are love hearts in the US during Valentine's day they are called Sweet Hearts

Seems a bit extreme to take that amount of pension away just for a little bit of coffee, i bet thats the sale price calculated too and not the cost price.

1:24 i thiigh nothing of the cotton all on the terth until i was thinking about it and got shivers up my spine from just the imaginary juxtaposition

That sounds like cruel and unusual punishment. In the States we have certain rights which are ensrhined in our constitution as they are natural rights. Taken those rights away is wrong.

As an expat in the US I have never acquired the taste for Hershey's, to me it tastes like vomit. Cadbury's for the win any day...

Right, Kids we are moving to Kuwait to open a sweet shop so Mary-joe and Billy-bob pack up your shit. I have been working my ass off working at the supermarket here in Montana and it's time for the Kuwaiti dream to begin.

America might be a capitalist wasteland but at least most of our major companies offer free coffee to employees.

Other people have mentioned Sweethearts. Which have a long history, going back to 1866. Considering that I’m surprised that Love Hearts, which started making them in 1954, were allowed to do so.

What's next? A Netflix series about the Coffee Case... THE MAN WHO STOLE COFFEE, a greedy criminal who couldn't get enough of just one small coffee and wanted to take over the world and lost everything...

Man kinda insane losing pension over that, it is way above the top for that. Probably no one sat and saw a weeks footage of how many did that, there'd be a lot more than just that 1 guy for sure...

Richard Madeley is turning more into Alan Partridge every single day.

Man, this is what we mean by saying there is no "greyzone" in Japan. When there is no black and white answer, it's a blank stare. Really weird considering this is the country of haiku's and reading between the lines of what's respectful and what's not. I mean, let him pay for the coffee, could've been an honest mistake. I mean, how many foreigners can't read the coffee machine and don't even know the difference of the price?!

I swear I heard that coffee story before o.0

In America, we don't call the shape "love heart," just "heart," and neither do we call the candy that either, but we do have it.

I recently found out that Japanese weapon laws are so restrictive, it's almost impossible to get steel fencing equipment and simulators for modern HEMA, Kenjutsu, etc.. Even steel feders (big bendy things) are forbidden. Ironically, shinai for Kendo hurt a lot worse than a feder.

“Welcome to the Abroad In Japan Podcast, the only place I get to use my ridiculously expensive studio, I’m…”

We used to have Sweet hearts in Canada. We may still have, I don't have much of a sweet tooth anymore.

speaking of burgers what are your assessments of mos burger in Japan?

Norway: We've had Love Hearts for ages.

It was a matter of "principal" :)

Maybe the store should pay an employee to serve coffee and then people wouldn't be able to steal 50 cents of coffee.

Awesome job chris with the podcast drop a like

Openly carrying swords is legal here in Vancouver, as long as its openly carried/visible and not concealed in any way then yes its fine. Cops might still stop you and asks questions like why you're carrying that, just answer its a fashion accessory and you'll be fine.

Slightly related to the karaoke room question, there was a video done by another channel called the Japan reporter, that detailed his experience in working at an internet cafe…. He noted people would rent out rooms at an internet cafe and have sex in them, especially on Valentine’s Day.

Poor guy got treated worse than Stalin and Hitler! They really need to take a step back. Everyone can do wrong.

This is hilariously "Ironic". As I will never pass up a free Refill of Coffee & Tea/Iced !.....I left my Wallet at my favorite "Indi-Coffee & Tea House" here in Woodland, CA this morning ( MORGAN'S MILL ) & I made certain to get that 3rd refill for free when I went back to retrieve my Wallet !

Japan, the place where homeless and hopeless youth is a growing problem, people (redacted due to KZfaq censorship) after being overworked, but at least they annihilated that $1 coffee thief. Seems like the wrong thing to take from that saying "it's the little things in life."

Wendy has square burgers because 'they don't cut corners'

Chris shoulda try the Cyberpunk TRPG

how legally can doing a crime affect your other stuff. like you dont lose social security cause you stole a tv. you might have your social security taken to pay for the tv but like it doesnt stop.

They better over rule revoking that mans pension. That's beyond absurd.

Generally speaking, some of the things that sticks the most with my peabrain: The first and last things mentiones. Pete's hands smell like dog food. Gotcha.

It could be worse, you could have cat food on your hands.😊

4:13 yeah they put the chemical that's in sick in our chocolate. I get imported chocolate. 😂

We have love hearts. We just call them something different. And they taste like chalk.

I totally swear by tsukemen (dipping ramen). Once you go tsukemen, you just don't go back to regular ramen anymore.

ramen, tsukemen, boku ha ikemen!

hersheys chocolate is not real chocolate lol. we do have other chocolates in america. some premium brands. they taste better

The US does have a version of Love Hearts and they are terrible, but one know WHY they keep selling them every Valentins Day

"Cats do not abide by the laws of nature." -Charlie Kelly

Pete, you gotta get a bag of SweetTarts JELLYBEANS. They are incredible.

SHHHOOGGUUNNN

Hershey’s chocolate tastes the way it does due to WWII. In order for GI’s to be able to get chocolate worldwide (from the Arctic to the South Pacific), Hershey had to add all sorts of shit to make that possible, which gave it a…distinctive taste, which the GI’s grew to love. Once they came home, they wanted that beloved Hershey’s taste. So Chris, just because you ate a certain thing “from America”, when you were 9, from 1 company, stop acting like that is “American chocolate.”

Dungeons and Dragons is awful in my experience, everyone says "get a good DM" so I try a supposed "good DM" and it's still shit. Bunch of nerdy divas vying to sound the most interesting or minmaxers or using the game to demonstrate their severe personality disorders without fear of social repercussion. Most DMs are also railroad the game heavily. I excused myself from each of them after a few sessions. I'll never play again, I'd rather just go and experience the real world or play video games if I need an escape.

This honestly can't be the full story. I simply can't believe it lol wowww... If that's all he's ever done wrong in his entire life and I had the money, I'd totally make it a point to give him the $135,000 and make it super public. That's a worse theft, invalidating a lifetime of work and service. In the land of parables and haikus, haven't they ever heard that "two wrongs don't make a right"

hmmm,... in Japan the majority of theft is done by the LDP,... they don't like any competition ...

Americans do have love hearts, super chalky things.

mmm tastes like red dye 40.

Who tells Pete, that you can wash your hands?

We have "love hearts" in America. Their chalky, awful and shaped like actual hearts unlike Pete's discs there lol

Like the video! let's make Chris more famous than he is comfortable with!

Wash your hands Pete, and please don't eat out of the peanut bowl at the pub