I used to work full time then switched to a 4 day work week, less money but was nice. Then after a couple of years I had to go back to a 5 day work week and I remembered why it sucked, you never really recharge your batteries. Now I'm back to 4 days and even though my paycheck is tiny as hell its still much better for my mental health.

Yo I remember the hawk. That's old school AbroadinJapan Lore 😂❤❤ Much love from germany Chris!

I proposed to my now fiancé on top of Shibuya sky. They had a camera man that took pictures of people at the edge of the building. Decided to pop the question there in the 30 seconds we had of photo taking 😂 Locals around us were very supportive. No regrets

I worked for a very venerable Japanese pharmaceutical company which had a very progressive attitude towards work life balance: staying after 6pm was highly discouraged; nobody had to wait on the boss to leave (and he’d deliberately leave randomly between 4 and 6pm); signs up everywhere reiterating work life balance; they celebrated gay pride month etc). Apparently the big change was caused by changing the official language from Japanese to English. This got rid of the Senpai/Kohai dynamic and the labs weren’t close to a train station, so it was hard to go drinking after work, so you were relieved of a lot of the drinking culture.

Toyota is the only Japanese brand on the top 50 largest companies on Earth. Back during the bubble, there were many, many Japanese firms on that list. Now Toyota is the only one left.

You mentioned Takinami! Watched the video on it and immediately put it on my itinerary, will be going there in November. Super excited!

we need game cafes in the UK, bring some fun to the grey isles

The full name is Chorlton-come-Hardy, it's in South Manchester, but Pete is correct, we are about 4 miles away from Stockport. cool place to live,.

It is sort of sad that you have never seen Japan’s flying squirrel, it certainly is a cute little bugger and like the Australian Sugar Glider, I am led to believe it can glide.

Love the yakuza minigame background of a fight idea

Used to go to game centres in Japan. An interesting difference versus western video arcades was in fighting games. In Canada you would typically play a game like Street Fighter side by side against your opponent on the same arcade cabinet. In Japan you would have two cabinets back to back across from each other, so you might be playing a solo fight and have a challenger arrive playing the cabinet across from you, and you would never even see the face of the other person challenging you. I always thought this was a good indication of a cultural difference, since Japanese would probably be too shy to challenge someone if they had the western side by side system.

Bomberman! Loved that game as a kid! From SNES, to Megadrive to the Xbox version, many misspent hours 🙂

Just stayed at the shimoda yamatokan and it was good! The building is old, but the private onsen in our room with a fantastic view of the beach was awesome. Food was really good and staff were so nice!

i loved that Misono building with those retro showa style staircase (took so many photos of it before and after getting sloshed) , hung out there with my bestie 6yrs ago...bar hopping from door to door & going from floor to floor so much fun & so many strange themed bars inside there! Read that the tenants contract will not be renewed and it'll be gone by year end...such a pity 😥

Secret underground bars sound so cool

Stayed at the Dormy Inn in Matsuyama a few weeks ago and it seems new and was really nice. Pretty sure that one had Onsen water in their baths. Also free Ramen at night!

So my workplace has an option where you can work 4 10 hour days or 5 8 hour days, and I actually like working on Friday because it's a ghost town. Also if for some reason you had to leave early in the day, you can work for like 2-4 hours on Friday and leave at noon or so, which seems a popular option

great episode!

I miss Game Bar Continue in Osaka. That place was a hoot. Sadly closed down.

With regard to nice/ cool places to stay I recommend Okunoin Hotel Tokugawa in Nikko. It was pricey but it was an amazing experience. An outside onsen at dawn watching the clouds drift by and the leaves in the trees gently undulating in the wind was truly magical. For straight out bonkers a room with a view of Godzilla at hotel Gracery in Shinjuku is great. My youngest kid and partner had that view. My oldest kidcand and I had fantastic views from the 30th floor. I stayed up too late and got up too early just to take in the view of Shinjuku below, and Sky Tree and Tokyo Tower in the distance. One tip ask for soft pillows. Japanese pillows can be like rocks. As Chris recommends a machiya in Kyoto or Kanazawa is worth it.

It will be interesting to see if the Japanese work culture changes if they want to stay alive and relevant. I am in Dallas and they have a headquarters here but abide by US rules and laws and that is changing for many since covid.

Chorlton-Cum-Hardy (ooer!) is a suburb of Manchester, there's also another secret Chorlton in Manchester near the uniersities is called called Chorlton-on Medlock.

Its where the Wheelies come from!

We had a day or two stop over in Tokyo recently before heading south to Kyushu, and was keen to see Asakusa and Akihabara; so we stayed at the Nohga Hotel in Akihabara. It's pretty nice, central, boutique and decent value. Good if you want to see that side of town and aren't spending all week in Tokyo.

also to take i account foreign companies don't have that strict rule regarding to getting sacked unlike Japanese company will have, if for some reason the Japanese company you work for is very good

A Japanese Dwarf Flying Squirrel was used in "Virtual Fighter" as a "Comedy Relief" character.

Oh man. I'll have to try to find this place, or one like it.

Any chance you could put in Google map locations or at least the names of the places you mention? Or at least some of the ones you think are best.

So i went back and watched the Osaka video from 5 years ago lmao you guys look so young 😮

Stayed at the Osaka Dormy in last May (there's multiple, talking about the one quite close to Dotonbori). It's not the best but it's cheap and indeed has a public bath with 3 different temperatures if I recall correctly (Cold, 40 degrees celcius, and I think 43 or 44 degrees). It has a Family Mart basically in the same building. For it's location and value I would say it's worth it.

Cheers lads

that random week-old bag of gummies🤣

I miss your shitty quality videos, I watch them annually! Classic abroad!😂😂

Kusatsu is an excellent recommendation.

With regard to Kyoto over-tourism (of other cities as well), why not encourage your listeners to seek out sites other than the crazy-busy ones? Or choose shoulder and off-season times to visit? A little research ahead of their arrival might lead them to all sorts of perhaps more obscure but equally fascinating options that are much less congested. Timing is always everything--day or season. I can't think of any place I have visited that was underwhelming, because I look for places that match my peculiar interests rather than the major attractions (though I've hit most of those as well).

My son loves Hi-Chew Yubari Melon, but apparently they don’t make it anymore. Picky is another Japanese snack that’s everywhere in America now.

So far I've been to the Space Station one. It's pretty neat, tho I was surprised that the night I went was when expats from America were tending the bar

It took me way to long to realize Pete was the same Pete from Wrestleme podcast.

I have a squirrel living in the awning on my front porch. Little bastards are very annoying lol

Chorlton is in Manchester

Waaoow is also hello in big cat language

How does everyone think Chris will react to the latest Tokyo portfolio video?

I visited Tokyo for the first time last year and the one thing that disappointed me the most was the retro video game bars. As an older gamer was under the impression they would be amazing there but all I found was that all the newer ones are carbon copies of each other, hosting the same games. The only better ones we found were so run down, dank and smelt terrible.

One would think Nintendo would welcome these bars ... Its free advertising

Longer podcast please Mr KZfaqr

What does the fox say 🦊🦊🦊

Because video games are ace and Japan makes some of the best?

Podcast 18 of asking Chris to speedrun nearly every main temple in Tokyo !!

So, I dont wanna talk doom and gloom, but I feel like Chris should regularly spice the podcast up a little. Maybe do some special episode, a collab episode, a themed episode, a game episode, or sth. It's getting quite repetitive now

Please stop putting this ad saying: "woman activiste are blablabla" on the spotify podcast it's such a slow pace speaker making only want to pass through the ad and making me mad when the purpose of this ad is really good the ad itself is lame.

1st

I need to go to japan and find a cute gamer gf. Step 1: watch every anime so i can impress her. I think it's going to work.