Latest / The Japan Travel Pros Podcast / Kyoto, the Japan Travel Bubble & Planning with Intention

Transcript

Kyoto, the Japan Travel Bubble & Planning with Intention · The Japan Travel Pros Podcast

0:01
That's one of those little things, again, you can't see in
0:03
the picture you they don't put in the movies, but it's what was
0:06
so wonderful for me. It's not the wild goose chase of
0:11
how many attractions can you go to that I would say would be
0:14
winning in Kyoto. It would be going to one a day
0:16
or two a day, but taking your time.
0:19
You don't have to be a hero at travel.
0:21
You just have to be true to where you are, be respectful and
0:25
make it a great experience. And there's more than enough of
0:28
Japan and Kyoto to go around. Thanks for checking in.
0:40
This is the Japan Travel Pros podcast.
0:42
Each week we bring you stories and fresh perspectives about the
0:45
people and places that make Japan so interesting.
0:49
Along the way. You'll hear practical advice for
0:51
planning your own trip in this episode.
0:53
We have our first guest, our very first guest on the Japan
0:56
Travel Pros Podcast. Brad and I have been friends
0:59
since high. School.
1:00
We studied Japanese together way back in the day, and in a real
1:03
way, we started our Japan journeys at the same time we've
1:06
both spent time in Japan. Over the years, our paths have
1:09
crossed multiple times in Japan and around the world.
1:12
For the 1st guest episode, this really felt like the right place
1:14
to start. Now you're going to hear us
1:16
talking about food, about technology, but also maybe
1:19
getting away from the screen. And what happens when Japan
1:22
becomes less of an idea and more of a real place that you're
1:26
determined to experience? Stay with us through the end.
1:29
Brad has some great advice for anyone planning a first trip or
1:32
return trip to Japan. Growing up in the 80s, Japan was
1:36
the future. It was what everyone looked to
1:39
as like with some fear and some excitement, what we might be
1:42
going toward. And it's funny because I was
1:44
thinking in terms of movies. And so I think like it, it went,
1:47
it predates that's we're not as old as James Bond.
1:49
You only live twice. Like neither of us are born Then
1:51
you know, there are many scenes there where they use the same
1:53
imagery where he's dropped into a subway car and the Japanese
1:58
intelligence officer says, surely you have this in London.
2:01
And of course, James Bond smirk. But he didn't, right?
2:03
So Japan was way advanced even in the the 60s in perception.
2:08
And then somehow the movie Gung Ho came up because it was more
2:12
somber. It was actually a lot of after a
2:14
lot of job losses in the early 80s and a lot of the things we
2:18
seem to be doing wrong, Japan seem to be doing right, but
2:20
actually quite deep in a lot of ways.
2:23
And did a really nice treatment on how superficially were
2:27
different, but but deeper down were the same.
2:30
And that was, those are some of the undercurrents of Japan when
2:33
we were, at least when I was starting to get to know it.
2:36
Lost in translation and and and movies like that.
2:39
We rewatched that a couple of years ago, a few years ago and
2:42
already we're just pointing at the screen like OK, that's wrong
2:44
No, you wouldn't do that. I.
2:46
Liked the movie as like a beautiful way to capture total
2:50
jet lag and dysfunction mentally, you know, and
2:55
physically because you're just in such a foreign place compared
2:59
to where you're from. So I think that movie says more
3:02
about where you're from than it does about Japan.
3:04
Yeah, and, and most of it took place in in the Park Hyatt
3:08
itself, and a lot of that at the bar on, you know, an island in
3:12
in the middle of Shinjuku. Geniuses, geniuses over at the
3:15
Park Hyatt closed it down for over a year, I think a year and
3:18
a half for a major renovation in the middle of a Japan travel
3:23
boom, mind you, and then reopen about six months ago.
3:26
And of course, they're charging exorbitant rates to try to make
3:28
up for not having that that revenue.
3:31
So every time our clients look at it and say, Oh yeah, I want
3:33
to, I want to stay at that place that was in Lost in Translation.
3:36
Then they look at the prices like, yeah, you know what, I
3:38
want to go have a cocktail at that place.
3:40
That was in Lost in Translation. We we look at Japan in in so
3:46
many ways now through big media and not everyday life.
3:51
And that's probably true of the US too.
3:52
I hear, you know, right now, not to date the podcast too much,
3:55
but the World Cup is on and people are coming to the US with
4:00
probably very different perceptions than, you know,
4:04
they're experiencing. Fortunately, people are turning
4:06
out in their experiences, the travelers experiences to be
4:10
really, really nice, way nicer than they thought.
4:13
And everyday life is much more humble and similar in, you know,
4:18
what people are aspiring to. Then you might see if you only
4:22
watch the national news or international news from from
4:25
here or somewhere else. So Japan's the same way.
4:27
Like, I think the best thing is the small alley or the
4:30
convenience store, as you covered, you know, last time on
4:32
your podcast. It's the small things rather
4:35
than the, you know, the big theatrical moments.
4:39
And then as you, as you mentioned, Brad, expectations
4:41
and perceptions versus reality on the ground and that those can
4:45
go either way. 30 years ago, a similar event to World Cup, it
4:48
was during Olympics and I had a client, I was living in Japan.
4:51
I had a client, a client was a multinational company and they
4:54
were a sponsor of Olympics. Their advertising campaign in
4:58
Japan was to have youth reporters from Japan reporting
5:03
on the Olympics. The thing that stood out the
5:05
most for them, every one of those kids was staying in an
5:08
American home. An employee of that company
5:11
opened their home for two weeks. And how is those kids and
5:17
treated them not just like guests, but really like family.
5:21
And I think that was really surprising for those kids that
5:24
they that ended in the best possible way.
5:26
Much as you said, Brad, that they had these perceptions of is
5:29
it, is it safe? Well, they were safe.
5:31
They were staying with families of this multinational in in in
5:34
the suburbs in Atlanta. And those are all adults know
5:36
with probably many of them have their own families.
5:38
That probably stands out as the as the memory of having that
5:41
yeah experience. For sure the best experience of
5:44
my time. I lived in Japan, as you know,
5:46
for a year after college and I was in a moderate sized city.
5:53
And then I went every weekend to a tiny city and we were
5:58
ostensibly playing taikodrums, which are, you know, the really
6:03
great Japanese tradition. I say ostensibly because I
6:06
wasn't any good at it and and it was mostly powered by
6:11
enthusiasm, but we were like treated like, I don't want to
6:14
say royalty, more like family, like you say, because we just
6:17
hung out. And when my family came to
6:20
visit, we would bring them down there because I wanted to share
6:23
these relationships. And it's all the little things.
6:27
And the one of the nice things about Japan that you don't see
6:30
in the Instagram pictures is we'd sit around, there was food,
6:35
there was drinking, everything was plentiful.
6:37
At the end, there's some magic signal that someone you know,
6:41
you eventually start to see. In the beginning, I was clueless
6:44
and eventually I got the hint a little bit faster.
6:46
But everyone starts to put things away.
6:49
Everyone picks up the garbage. It's spotless in about 12
6:52
minutes and here in the US it's somebody's job to pick up the
6:58
garbage and no one else does it. I suppose I did take that for
7:00
granted. I didn't realize how how much
7:03
better it could be if everyone one didn't pollute and you'll
7:07
cover that the the no garbage thing but cooperated to pick it
7:11
up. It would meant it was all
7:13
painless and it was just so nice to be part of that.
7:17
And that's one of those little things, again, you can't see in
7:19
the picture you they don't put in the movies.
7:22
But it's what was so wonderful for me about living in Japan.
7:25
Yeah, and Brad, you were, you were teaching at A at a high
7:30
school. Actually, it was a high school,
7:32
but it was a technical high school.
7:33
Turned out to be significant that it wasn't one of the
7:36
classic, classic sort of hardcore academic high schools.
7:41
It was the the they would say second tier career track, but to
7:47
me it was also amazing because these are the everyday people
7:50
that I would see in everyday US. But you don't get celebrated
7:55
outside of Japan. These were not the kids going to
7:57
Tokyo University afterwards, these were the kids going to
8:00
probably going to work at 18 essentially.
8:03
Yeah, they were learning how to string cable and do
8:07
construction, which society needs and Japan is really good
8:10
at, but it was not the academic track.
8:14
And these days, I bet a lot of those kids are actually doing
8:17
really well compared to some people going is AI going to take
8:20
my job? AI is probably not going to take
8:22
a lot of their jobs. Right.
8:24
The pressure was also off. So they would probably say
8:26
they're in a different Japan too.
8:27
They also because of the flip side of having low expectations
8:31
put on you, which is unfortunate, is they also had no
8:35
expectations. So they would smile more and
8:38
laugh more and the level of stress was much lower.
8:43
But yeah, there was a a human side that that you didn't often
8:47
see in the mainstream portrayal of Japanese schools in
8:51
particular. It's really cool.
8:52
It's something that a lot of us wouldn't necessarily think
8:55
about. Yeah, nor did I, I was just
8:56
lucky I got the luck of the draw to be a sign there.
8:58
In that school, do you remember the kids cleaning the.
9:02
Classroom every day, after every day they they're sweeping and
9:07
mopping. And again, that's one of these
9:09
things that just happened spontaneously.
9:10
All the mops come out, all the rooms come out, everything's
9:13
turned upside down. But it takes like 15 minutes and
9:16
then the place is spotless. Even though it was probably
9:18
40-50 years old by then, it wasn't a beautiful, you know,
9:22
fancy Park Hyatt architecture. It was old and post war and made
9:28
as efficiently as possible and maintained incredibly well.
9:32
And it did mean something that the kids did it themselves, I'm
9:36
sure. Not so much gum under the desk,
9:38
not so much garbage in the halls, no graffiti, right?
9:40
And it was something again, like a glimpse into that spirit that
9:44
we're all in this together let's take care of.
9:46
It so to to give a little background for what we're
9:48
talking about here. This is normal for kids in
9:52
school in Japan on a daily basis.
9:56
And it's in some cases it's a rolling daily basis like your
10:00
your team, your group or your class has more responsibility a
10:04
certain day of the week. But ultimately, as you said, you
10:07
saw kids cleaning the classroom or the halls or other facilities
10:11
at the school every day. And this goes on to when you're
10:15
in university, for example, you're in a club and then when
10:18
people get into a company, that's not to say they don't
10:20
employ maintenance staff or cleaning staff.
10:23
They do, offices do and schools do, just to make sure the kids
10:27
did a pretty good job of especially in elementary school,
10:30
right? You want to, they might miss a
10:31
few spots, but nonetheless, kids are taught, people are taught
10:35
these responsibilities from an early age.
10:38
And it's very much is, as you said, Brad, the idea that we're
10:42
all in this together. And if everyone pitches in, it
10:44
might just go a little bit better for each and every one
10:47
of. US.
10:48
Yeah, the irony is again, back to the clean up after the the
10:52
drumming team parties, drumming club parties.
10:54
If everybody did it that way and it only took 15 minutes, no one
10:57
would be fighting to not do it. So it goes hand in hand.
11:00
The model works because the model works.
11:03
You. Mentioned that there was like
11:03
this invisible inaudible signal that everyone picked up on that
11:07
said, OK, it's it's time to it's time to wrap it up.
11:11
I was just reminded the other day where in Kyoto there is a
11:16
phrase, if you have guests over at your home and if you say
11:20
something very specific, like, oh, would you like some?
11:23
It's like Ocha Zuke, but it's not.
11:25
It's like a special version of it.
11:26
It's like, oh, where you know, would you would you like some,
11:30
some of this? And then the guest is supposed
11:33
to pick up and say, oh, no, thank you.
11:34
You know what? Wow, look at the time I really
11:36
have to be going because the host has just indicated that
11:38
it's time for you to go. That's great because it's
11:42
something that isn't, isn't trivial.
11:44
It's like slightly more than trivial.
11:46
So that's your cue. I wouldn't want to put you out.
11:48
So no, of course. So it's it just embedded in the
11:50
assumption you don't want to put a burden on someone else.
11:53
That's beautiful encoded in there.
11:57
It is. That's a Kyoto specific thing.
11:59
And there are Japanese from other parts of the country,
12:01
maybe even from Osaka, which is a very direct culture, even
12:04
though the cities are next to each other.
12:05
Person from Osaka, unless they had heard about this as a legend
12:08
or something, might not pick up on that and say, yeah, you know
12:12
what? That sounds great.
12:12
Let's pop open another beer. And the host is going, Oh my
12:15
God, I wanted you to go this episode of the.
12:18
Japan Travel Pros Podcast is brought to you by Japan Travel
12:22
Pros. But of course, how are your
12:25
travel plans looking? Everything coming together?
12:27
Maybe things are getting more confusing the more you look.
12:30
Turns out, planning a trip to Japan can get a little
12:33
overwhelming. Not because Japan is impossible,
12:36
it's not. But there are a lot of choices
12:39
out there, a lot of opinions, and a lot of very confident
12:43
people and machines online. You know who I'm talking about.
12:46
Some of them are helpful, but some of them are, let's face it,
12:50
confidently wrong. Now, what we offer instead at
12:53
Japan Travel Pros is collaboration.
12:56
You tell us your goals and your questions, priorities and
12:59
constraints. We bring good judgement,
13:01
context, local insights, and years of experience helping
13:05
people like you make the right decisions.
13:08
So if you're planning a trip to Japan and you want a real person
13:10
helping you sort through the options, go to
13:13
japantravelpros.com/plan. That's Japan
13:16
travelpros.com/plan. You lived in Japan in the 90s,
13:22
you first visited in the 80s and then you've come back.
13:25
You've returned as a visitor at different times under different
13:28
circumstances in the years since.
13:30
Maybe talk about that a little bit and what you've seen, what
13:33
you've felt and and what you've experienced.
13:36
In the early days, like from James Bond onward, Japan was all
13:39
about technology. So when things were mechanized,
13:42
they were smaller and with kind of unbelievably high quality
13:46
that those are the two hallmarks.
13:48
There were things you would think can't fit on a wrist,
13:51
can't fit in a pocket, but a Japanese company would would
13:54
come along and do it. And it was exciting.
13:56
And I love technology, so it's probably what inspired my career
14:00
path, which is in technology and making those things.
14:02
But but Japan was just like this treasure trove and they were
14:06
places in Japan where all that stuff was collected, that
14:09
Akihabara used to be a neighborhood in Tokyo where you
14:12
would have department store and tiny little shop.
14:15
And they were just after one after another.
14:17
And they were just packed with all this latest stuff.
14:20
So it it was actually like out of a movie, you would say.
14:23
Even today, it feels the magical place.
14:26
And Japan was feeding the world a lot of those things, a lot of
14:30
the innovation came from Japan and went outward.
14:33
Japan always went its own way and had its own standards.
14:35
And they were really interesting and really creative, but not
14:38
compatible with anything else. And at some point about 20 years
14:43
ago, I would say the iPhone 1 basically, and Android 1, and a
14:48
lot of these indigenous operating systems, and then with
14:52
them design patterns and branding universes essentially
14:58
just went away. And so now it's super cool.
15:00
You get to get on a plane, use your phone the whole way, get
15:04
off, and you're still talking pretty much.
15:07
It's amazing that the world is smaller, but it's also so much
15:10
more boring because you used to actually travel and then be
15:14
somewhere else and now you can travel, will you?
15:17
Unfortunately, you can live here and be in a bubble and also you
15:20
can bring your bubble. And So what we used to be nice
15:23
about travel in general was that it was far away and it felt far
15:27
away. And I'm glad in so many ways,
15:29
globalization has been good for me in a lot of ways.
15:32
But in others it it diminishes the experience of being present
15:37
in a place that's different than what you're used to.
15:39
Yeah, the screen thing is, is huge, isn't it?
15:42
Because a lot of the times it, it feels like wherever we go,
15:45
we're still looking at that same screen, which is, which is not
15:48
ideal. But also as you mentioned on on
15:51
the flip side, it it enables us to do some things that we
15:55
wouldn't either we wouldn't have had the access to.
15:58
Yeah, it's hard to say that it's a bad thing to be able to to
16:01
pick up this magic thing device and then be able to hear music
16:05
from anywhere on the planet at any time in human history.
16:07
Pretty much. And like, that's that's a dream,
16:09
right? That's fantastic.
16:11
Even if you arrive someplace and didn't have the phone on, you
16:17
know, you have one. But traveling, it's not just to
16:21
see the thing or to eat the thing.
16:23
It's a growth opportunity, and that doesn't always come from
16:26
the familiar. So getting yourself out of the
16:28
comfort zone is the fundamental necessity for getting the most
16:33
out of the travel experience. Japan has represented the exotic
16:37
from a Western point of view for pretty much all of our lives.
16:42
And so it's it's certainly still a part of of its identity, for
16:45
better, for worse. And we don't have to live in
16:46
that forever, but it's certainly a part of what it used to be.
16:49
Back in the day at 747 Lands, you know it flies from from San
16:53
Francisco, Tokyo, 100 people step off that wide body in the
16:56
1980s or the 1990s and go experience Japan for a week or
17:01
10 days or two weeks versus 100 people, 100 visitors step off a
17:06
wide body today and go experience Japan.
17:09
What are the differences there and how is it maybe getting back
17:12
to what you mentioned earlier, how is it maybe flattened more
17:15
now than before? Is that even correct?
17:18
In those days, the world was very diverse and you wanted your
17:22
bubble, I suppose, or they were trying to.
17:24
For people who weren't accustomed to traveling.
17:26
Maybe if we give you a bubble, you'll go.
17:28
I think that was the what they thought.
17:32
And when we started going to Japan, it was much more
17:37
different and felt much more exotic.
17:39
And so it was hard to live in that bubble.
17:43
And I think many aspects, many of those aspects of Japan are
17:46
still there, but it's much easier for a modern tech centric
17:51
person to stay fairly centered in their own experience, their
17:56
own current experience. And it's not a crime and I do it
17:59
most of the time. So I certainly can't preach but
18:01
but the depth of my engagement in Japan has been less the more
18:05
digital stuff has been around me.
18:06
Let's talk about that bubble for a little bit.
18:08
Is it possible that the bubble, the bubble that we saw the Japan
18:13
travel bubble of the 80s and 90s, can we, can we agree that
18:16
it is it has expanded outward, but that it's there is still a
18:19
Japan travel bubble? For sure.
18:21
And it's almost like the good thing is that people are
18:24
interested in something new and something different and they're
18:28
they have almost entirely positive feelings about it.
18:30
So that's great. Like the goodwill level on those
18:32
people who are landing in Japan, it's, it's got to be high,
18:36
right? I think of it's very, very high
18:38
excitement and goodwill level. The limitation would be if
18:41
they're in pursuit of a caricature and that's it.
18:45
And it's not, again, that's not their fault because that's all
18:47
they know. But it's not all Japan is.
18:49
It's not all any other places. I agree with you Brad, that that
18:52
they're they're coming with goodwill, good feelings, good
18:54
intentions, good vibes. And if they were gently, not
18:58
even pushed, gently hand held to just take two steps to the side
19:04
and walk smoothly out of that bubble out into greater Japan,
19:10
if you want to call it that. And go to a place like where you
19:13
lived in Yamanashi Prefecture, for example.
19:15
Or go to a place in Saitama, it's super close to Tokyo.
19:19
Or go to a place in Saga Prefecture in the South or Akita
19:22
Prefecture in the north, a place that doesn't get a lot of
19:25
visitors. And you know, you know, you're
19:26
not in the bubble at least. Yeah.
19:28
If it's your first trip to Japan and you don't speak Japanese,
19:32
you'll at least at least be leaving the comfort zone a
19:34
little bit and leaving the bubble a little bit.
19:36
Yeah. What do you think about that?
19:38
Yeah, totally, definitely, definitely.
19:39
And I was wondering if even anyone has a paper map anymore
19:43
because it's hard to get lost anymore.
19:45
And again, it's magic and I love it and I use it every day.
19:47
So I'm not criticizing it, but it detaches me from the world.
19:50
It detaches me from where I live here, if I route, you know, most
19:53
efficiently and I just follow the the blue line.
19:56
So there's something about just like how to help people be
20:00
really present and. I guess the little neighborhood
20:02
where I live, which was chosen for me, so I just lucked out,
20:06
but had a little restaurant and I was definitely the only non
20:11
Japanese person there, maybe the only non Japanese person with
20:14
within a 10 mile radius or pretty darn close.
20:19
And people treated me with, you know, not so much suspicion but
20:25
like question. But generally, people were
20:29
really, really nice. And the longer you have contact
20:32
and the longer they have contact, the warmer everything
20:35
got. And it was all those little
20:38
things where there's the uncomfortable moment.
20:42
It was a year of nothing but uncomfortable moments in the
20:46
beginning of literally everything.
20:48
I guess the quest to get through that was good.
20:51
But like, I knew there was, I was still curious enough.
20:54
And again, I'm not heroic. Everyone did that.
20:56
You had to do it to get through your day.
20:58
But it was a common feeling. I have no idea what I'm doing.
21:02
I hope I didn't just offend someone.
21:04
And even when we were there just in December, I realized now we
21:08
did it again, like we were waiting for the bullet train and
21:11
we got it half right. Wait for the people to come off.
21:15
Don't push, you know, let them come out where you the gates
21:18
line up perfectly where the train stops.
21:21
And then we went on and I didn't realize all those other people
21:23
on the side weren't just spectators.
21:24
They were waiting to get on and we should have been behind them.
21:27
Messed up. I didn't know that.
21:28
And they didn't say anything because they're super polite.
21:30
But now I know and we would do it differently next time.
21:33
But like all those discomforts and all those little rough edges
21:36
like that's, those have been the seed to a a great experience.
21:41
The fact that you cringe now looking back at any one of those
21:45
experiences, whether it was last year or 2030 years ago, just
21:48
says that you care. And you, you're, you're doing
21:51
your best to make, you know, the best effort possible to blend in
21:54
is the wrong word. Cultural immersion is the wrong
21:57
phrase. But at least not be sticking out
21:59
like a sore thumb. You know, stereotypical
22:03
American, for lack of a better word.
22:05
With our clients, I'd like to think we take the the same
22:07
approach. And a lot of them are either
22:08
following that cue or maybe actually we're following their
22:11
cubic because they they come to us saying, OK, I don't, I don't
22:15
just want to do the stereotype here.
22:16
And I love it when a client says, Ari, can you tell me a
22:20
little bit about etiquette or Aki, Ari, Anaghi, can you tell
22:24
me what what not to do here? Or, you know, I saw this thing
22:27
and I have mixed feelings of whether this is something we
22:30
should do. Can you tell me is this is this
22:31
cultural appropriation if we do this or how, how will this be
22:34
received if we do this in Japan? Should this be on our itinerary
22:37
or off of itinerary? Yeah, I love it when when
22:40
clients ask those questions and we have those conversations.
22:43
Welcome back. We're talking with Brad and
22:45
we're talking about how Japan has changed over the years, but
22:48
also maybe how Japan hasn't changed over the years.
22:52
What do you think, Brad? You've been to Japan, both
22:55
living in Japan and visiting Japan at different times.
22:58
What have you seen that might actually look familiar in some
23:01
ways? The overwhelming experiences
23:03
that things work together. So you notice how many people,
23:07
places and things are integrated there.
23:10
That's what part of what I love. Like we mentioned, people do
23:13
things together. There's great consideration for
23:15
how the other person will feel or how you, your actions will
23:18
affect the other person. And I really, really appreciate
23:21
that. And that's still there.
23:23
A lot of these systems and expectations and norms and, and
23:27
customs were designed to, to work in harmony and I really,
23:32
really enjoyed that. Part of that is also
23:35
consideration for elders. It's not hard to find this.
23:38
You find it in your first 7 minutes off the plane and while
23:43
you're waiting in the immigration line.
23:45
The entire staff seem to be 70 or 80 years old, and probably
23:48
that's a slight exaggeration, but not that much.
23:51
I'm not sure if that's success or not.
23:53
It might be hardship on some way.
23:55
Like I it might be that they're industrious and they want to
23:58
stay connected and they're still healthy and they want to
24:01
contribute. And it might be that
24:03
economically they have to. There could be flip sides of
24:05
that coin, but but in general, one of the really nice things
24:10
about Japan is consideration for respect for elders and some
24:14
sense that people age and that's normal and that's to be desired.
24:18
And in the US, like beyond a point, especially in the popular
24:21
media, you become invisible. There aren't too many people
24:23
beyond a certain age in Japan. You see a larger spectrum of
24:27
people in daily life, which again, I enjoyed, but I also
24:31
thought it was significant. We're talking about two distinct
24:33
things here and I think both both have merit.
24:36
The things that we can see, for example, some of it looks more
24:39
modern than it used to. Some places don't necessarily.
24:44
I mean, the bullet train is still breathtaking.
24:46
And I remember my memory had been that it was, say, three, 3
24:51
1/2 hours from Tokyo to Kyoto. And you're like, no, it's like
24:55
you want 2 1/2 or maybe less if you take a faster train.
24:59
And that was amazing. And then, OK, well, that's
25:00
interesting. That must be every, you know,
25:02
hour or two. It's like, no, every 15 minutes.
25:04
That's remarkable. Like to make something so fast,
25:07
so smooth, so consistent in such large volume.
25:10
That's just Japan at its peak. And it is.
25:13
It doesn't happen with one genius forcing everyone else
25:16
into slavery to make this thing happen.
25:18
It makes you need a community of people dedicated to common
25:22
standards and high standards. The safety record is still
25:25
impeccable, right? I mean, it's just, it's it's
25:28
really unbelievable compared to how many things we see that
25:31
humans make that have been running since 1960.
25:34
Something essentially to perfection in the face of
25:37
earthquakes and typhoons and what everywhere else would be
25:41
human decay. And they're faster now, and
25:44
they're not inexpensive, but it's less than a flight a lot of
25:49
the time. I just found that to be an
25:51
amazing experience, an amazing metaphor for what Japan is, is
25:56
still really incredible at. That's right, the Shin constant,
25:58
the bullet train in Japan recently celebrated its 60th
26:02
anniversary. And yeah, they're going, they're
26:04
going a little bit faster. And you'll see if you want to
26:06
call it superficial changes in terms of different types of
26:09
seating, the trains themselves over over time.
26:11
They look, they look more sleep, but they're they're always
26:14
different, different versions of it.
26:16
They've just announced that on the Tokyo to Osaka or Sheen
26:20
Osaka corridor, including Kyoto, for example, they're bringing
26:23
private rooms more like an office kind of set up back to
26:27
that trade. They had it for a while, they
26:29
went away. So now there's going to be the
26:31
ordinary car, the green car, and then you'll, you'll have the
26:35
opportunity to book essentially a private room with, with a
26:37
couple of seats in the table And that kind of set up.
26:39
There are the train lines. There are other bullet trains in
26:41
Japan that have different, different classes and different
26:43
versions. But other than that, basically
26:46
the, the, the Shinkon sense system in Japan has been coming
26:50
along. And yeah, there's the occasional
26:53
delay due to a typhoon and you're, you're going well, gosh,
26:56
I mean, it's a, it's a typhoon. You think they just shut down
26:58
for days now It's, you know, it's 5 minutes late here.
27:01
I think we had clients last year who were sitting on for an hour
27:03
or two and they got part of their fare refunded because it
27:06
at that point it was no longer an express, it was just a
27:09
training doctor there from A to B.
27:11
Yeah, You were telling me once that it was some small number of
27:13
minutes late and they were apologizing, whereas here it
27:16
would be a rounding error that they wouldn't even acknowledge
27:19
if it was an American airline, for example.
27:21
We were on a Shinkansen a few months ago going to Hakata,
27:25
Fukuoka and just in the last minute or so the train had to
27:29
slow down or it might have even stopped on the tracks for a
27:31
little bit until another train left the station.
27:33
So we were literally one minute late on arrival and the
27:38
conductor was apologizing. Hey, quick timeout here.
27:49
If you're looking at a trip to Japan and everything is just
27:52
starting to feel a little much, I think we can help.
27:55
You know, there comes a point when more information just makes
27:58
your head spin. We get it now.
28:00
That's where Japan Travel Pros comes in.
28:03
What we do is we help you sort through your plans, focus on
28:06
what actually matters to you, and then you can make decisions
28:10
with more confidence. Go to japantravelpros.com plan
28:14
to book a session. That's japantravelpros.com plan.
28:22
Welcome back, Brad. We touched on Kyoto a little bit
28:24
earlier in the conversation, but let's let's come back to it and
28:26
go a little bit more in depth because you have a particular
28:29
affinity for Kyoto. I think there's some, there's
28:31
some great reasons to love it and I think you and your family
28:34
certainly do. So you talk a little bit about
28:36
what first attracted you to Kyoto back in the day and why
28:40
you continue to go back and how you've you've introduced it now
28:42
to your family and how they enjoy it.
28:45
Kyoto is my favorite place in Japan because it is outside of
28:50
the hustle and bustle. Even though it's a modern city.
28:52
You can drive up in your bullet train, stay in a modern hotel,
28:57
order a taxi with an app, and those things are awesome.
29:00
But it also is the spiritual and formerly royal home of Japan.
29:06
We're talking about Japan over the years and 10 or 40 years,
29:10
but we're talking with Kyoto 3000, maybe lots, lots of years
29:15
and direct lineage to Chinese architecture and culture and
29:20
language and and they built the city from scratch, as I
29:26
understand it to honor the emperor.
29:29
It is it is just beautiful. It's dripping with with those
29:33
contributions. It's not the wild goose chase of
29:36
how many attractions can you go to that I would say would be
29:39
winning in Kyoto. It would be going to one a day
29:42
or two a day, but taking your time because a lot of the things
29:48
that are there, even though ironically, Nintendo is there so
29:51
it's home to video games. The temples are not meant to be
29:56
Dr. throughs. They're meant to be sit in and
29:59
contemplate. And it's hard to do when you're
30:01
on a vacation just because you're trying to see things.
30:05
It's hard to do because you're not alone.
30:08
They say the same thing about the Mona Lisa.
30:10
It'd be really nice if you could just sit there by yourself for a
30:12
couple hours, but you cannot because there's a lot of people
30:14
who want to see it and they cram you in.
30:16
But that's where to me, the real beauty is of really
30:19
understanding where the Japanese Ness we talked about Japan still
30:24
has a sense of Japan and a lot of it really is symbolized in
30:30
Kyoto. Like what is it exactly that
30:33
we're remembering? What is it about organizing
30:35
society and how we single things that are important and how you
30:40
take time for tradition. That's really the home base.
30:45
And so the last time we went, we actually didn't do many things
30:50
on quote UN quote the list. We only did it.
30:52
We only, we made it to a few, but we did get to spend a little
30:55
more time there and to make an impression and all we would wish
31:00
for is more of that time. It was.
31:02
It's just a very special place. There are a lot of reasons to
31:05
love it, but I really like what you say about how it's not the
31:09
highlight reel that makes Kyoto and it's not the checklist items
31:15
like you could. You could do technically zero of
31:18
those places and still fall in love with Kyoto.
31:21
Yeah, for sure. Not that you should zero those
31:23
places. You should go to some of those
31:24
places. But I mean, if you didn't and
31:26
you spent four days in that city and just walked around and
31:28
soaked it in and just did local things in local areas and.
31:32
We did, we and we did because that's the time we had.
31:35
We would have preferred to spend more at the 1st place on our
31:38
list to come back and and spend more time in but but it's not
31:41
the quantity, it is the quality for sure.
31:43
And want just to pick one place if you had to go to one place
31:46
and then leave the Golden pavilion is just never ceases to
31:52
be breathtaking. And it's funny because a lot of
31:54
these things, you know, you go to a museum and then you got to
31:57
go through all these hallways and labyrinth to get to the
31:59
thing, King Tut's tomb or whatever this place is.
32:03
It's like they show you the ending of the movie right as you
32:05
walk in. It's the climax at you walk in
32:09
up the up the thing. You go through the gate and it
32:11
just hits you in the face it and you can't imagine a more
32:15
stunning view of this stunning thing.
32:18
And it's right there and it's just breathtaking is the only
32:21
word that comes to mind because I still feel by recalling it.
32:25
I still recall that feeling and I remember the nostalgia that
32:28
when I was there, that's what I felt the first time.
32:31
So it was even brought back how shockingly gorgeous it was ages
32:36
ago when we went the first time. So if you had to pick one,
32:38
that's my pick. Or you may have more, but that
32:42
is just the kind of thing I could just Flightage fan, spend
32:46
some time there and come home and it would be a good trip.
32:48
I love that you said that because I've heard people talk
32:51
about the Golden Pavilion being a let down or even being a
32:56
tourist trap. And yet it's a place that I
33:00
intentionally put on a number of itineraries or at least
33:03
encourage a number of clients, a number of people to say, OK, so
33:07
let's set your expectations. It's not a temple in a garden
33:11
that you're going to go to for that stereotypical Zen calm
33:16
moment to sit there and, you know, to experience serenity and
33:19
meditate for an hour in peace and quiet.
33:21
It's not going to be that. And I think once you know that,
33:25
it opens it up and say, look, you're going to be maybe two or
33:29
three or four people deep before you get, yes, it is right there,
33:31
but you'll have to wait for some people to to clear out.
33:34
Not quite Mona Lisa situation, but also not, not desolate,
33:38
right? Right.
33:40
But worth it, especially if it's a sunny day.
33:42
You will catch it with that afternoon sun hitting in, in, in
33:46
just that moment. It's an absolute, absolutely
33:48
beautiful moment. It is just that, a moment.
33:50
You might only be there for half an hour, and that's fine.
33:53
Yeah. That's right.
33:54
It's memorable. Clearly it's memorable even even
33:56
for you. We've had, we've had clients
33:58
tell us that as well. Yeah, just spectacular.
34:00
And actually one of the things like I'm thinking of why I liked
34:03
it and what was impressive. It's OK.
34:04
So it's a pretty structure. It's pretty structure on a lake.
34:07
So there's the classic reflection.
34:09
If you've seen a postcard of Japan, 9 times out of 10, that's
34:11
the one. And then you're thinking, oh,
34:13
why is it like that? Because now I'm in product
34:15
development, so I know things don't happen by accident.
34:17
Someone had to make it like that.
34:19
And I'm thinking, OK, someone made it like that a very long
34:22
time ago. And so now we're thinking, OK,
34:25
When someone's in an old society, in the mindset where
34:28
you're thinking only about today, past doesn't matter,
34:30
future only matters. But if you go to a place like
34:33
that and you say, wow, someone did something really nice a long
34:36
time ago, and I'm part of that, you can see why people are
34:40
proud. And you can see it just is a
34:43
very humbling time scale. Kyoto is just littered with or
34:48
graced with those kinds of examples of a long stretch of
34:52
humanity. And you realize, wow, yes, we
34:55
have these magic things in our pockets and we have some robots
34:58
running around, but maybe we're not as different.
35:01
And then maybe the lessons that they learned, we could benefit
35:05
from as well. And it that, I think that's why
35:07
it gets to a spiritual place pretty quickly, because it's all
35:10
old, but we fit in somehow. You can get a connection to it.
35:14
It's not that hard to see someone with ingenuity and
35:17
appreciation made that and they organized society around it.
35:20
And these structures are meant to celebrate those things.
35:23
That's also something that I took away maybe more now than
35:26
when I was younger. Definitely a better late than
35:28
never, hopefully. With clients as well as we'll
35:30
say, if you have kids, you might want to plan in some activities
35:33
like don't go too hardcore temple, temple, shrine, shrine
35:38
and have multiple days like that, but put in in Kyoto big
35:42
being a modern city also gives people the opportunity to Hey,
35:45
the Pokémon center is there, for example, or that the ninja
35:48
museum is there and, and things, things like that.
35:51
But people are people flock to Kyoto because it's one of the
35:54
few places in Japan that you can actually see and touch and feel
36:00
the presence of history in a tangible sense.
36:03
And we had a client a while back ask a question or European
36:07
client ask a question. I thought it was a point of
36:08
question saying, you know, Ari, what what's going on in Japan?
36:12
Why is why is there not more? Is there no respect for history
36:15
or why is there not more history apparent?
36:18
And that's that's actually a great question.
36:20
I'd love that you asked that. And I want to, I want to answer
36:22
that with respect and to say that Japan actually reveres the
36:26
past and the place that you see it the most outside of Kyoto,
36:29
where you can actually see it and touch it and feel a tangily
36:31
the ways that you see that the most are in traditions and
36:35
attitudes and behaviors. And we've been talking about
36:38
that in in this conversation. For example, in our city in
36:41
Colby, there is one of the oldest shrines in Japan, Equitas
36:45
Shrine. I think it's among the top five
36:47
in terms of oldest in the sense that a shrine has been the
36:50
Equitas shrine has been on that, in that location, on that
36:53
property. But the only thing that you can
36:55
tangibly see and reach out and touch are a few holy trees.
36:59
And even those are only about 5, only about 500 years old.
37:04
That shrine is, they're those new trees exactly.
37:07
And that, but that shrine is technically well over 1000 years
37:11
old. I think it goes back to
37:12
something like the year 800 AD or thereabouts.
37:15
The Shinto traditions are still here and all what that means.
37:18
That's it. That's a whole other episode
37:19
that we can do a deep dive on. But the beauty of a place like
37:22
Kyoto is not only can you experience those traditions and
37:25
see those attitudes and behaviors, but you can also go
37:29
to the temples and the shrines and the gardens and see it in a,
37:33
in a physical, tangible sense, right?
37:37
So at the same time, there are other places in Japan that have
37:40
history and it might be in Kanazawa, for example, it might
37:44
be a little slice in Kuashiki, or it might be literally A1
37:49
block, 1 block of a street in Kawagoe inside someone next to
37:53
Tokyo. And all of a sudden people see
37:55
that and they'll say, I mean, I'm not sure if it's, you know,
37:57
chicken or egg. And this is this is the
37:58
marketing thing or people's reaction to it.
38:00
But they say, oh, this is little, little Kyoto.
38:02
So all these places pick up this, this moniker, this
38:04
nickname of little Kyoto. Folks, there's only one Kyoto.
38:09
And if, if over tourism is scaring you and if you've heard
38:11
anything and you say, well, I don't, I don't think you want to
38:13
go to Kyoto. We'll just go to one of those
38:15
other cities and experience a little Kyoto.
38:17
No, please, please don't do that.
38:19
Please, please go to Kyoto and give it, give it the time that
38:22
it deserves. If these things interest you, if
38:24
you're just a strictly a city person, you want to see modern,
38:26
then just go to Tokyo and Osaka and maybe we'll talk about some
38:29
other places. But if if you're interested in
38:31
history and history and its connection with culture,
38:34
Japanese culture all the way to present day culture, then Kyoto
38:37
is a great place to to experience that, isn't it brat?
38:40
Absolutely. And The funny thing is that even
38:43
though it's the center of the old tradition, I wasn't a
38:47
vegetarian when I came the first time, but I am now had the best
38:52
variety and depth of vegetarian food that we found in Japan, as
38:56
it turns out. Yeah.
38:57
Now on your on your recent trip, you went to the the restaurant
39:02
at Tenduji, that temple, wasn't it?
39:05
Oh, spectacular. How was describe describe that
39:07
meal? Too much food, too much
39:09
delicious food, You think? I don't know how many courses,
39:11
but more than we could eat. And it was just, I mean, I don't
39:16
know. The cliche is it's what you see
39:18
in magazines, but and probably Instagram.
39:20
But it's like beautiful looking food, beautiful tasting food,
39:23
all vegetarian, all in these preserved traditions of cooking
39:27
made on the grounds of this 1300 year old temple.
39:31
It may be the oldest active one, right?
39:32
Or somehow it's the oldest continuous one.
39:34
Or it's it was notable on the West side.
39:37
One of the oldest and ironically, and I guess this is
39:40
OK because there's there's certain people who are just
39:42
going to appreciate a temple and certain people who who that's
39:45
not that's not their thing and that's OK but immediately
39:47
adjacent to that temple is the now only recently but now famous
39:54
bamboo Grove. It's it's mistakenly called a
39:56
forest. It's not.
39:57
But anyway, the famous bamboo Grove in Arashiyama, which is if
40:00
there's daylight, it's. In fact, crowded and most people
40:04
overlook this temple that you're talking about.
40:06
Well, thanks to you, we went and it was one of the highlights of
40:09
the trip. Also, we wouldn't have found the
40:10
restaurant like it. You had to know it was there and
40:12
make a reservation. Yeah, I've never had food like
40:14
that in my life. And I wouldn't mind making that
40:17
a habit, but it was it was just exceptional.
40:19
And also again in in Kyoto. So this place known for the old,
40:23
but still very much place of pleasure today.
40:25
So what we're talking about here is something in Japanese called
40:29
Shojim duty, which is essentially Buddhist vegetarian
40:33
cuisine. And Brad, the meal that you're
40:35
describing was actually lunch. It sounds like it was a dinner
40:37
that was just lunch. I mean they only do lunch but
40:39
imagine if that was even more courses.
40:42
I think I could eat after that. So yeah, it was, it took care of
40:45
that, but it was lunch. You're right.
40:46
And there are a number of places in Kyoto that might be the best
40:49
one, but there are certainly others.
40:50
Is it the Buddhist tradition or just so many foreigners coming
40:53
that they they accommodate It's a.
40:55
Little bit of both. Tokyo actually still gets more
40:57
international visitors and you can get types of shogi and duty
41:01
or types of vegetarian cuisine in Tokyo.
41:03
But typically the restaurants that are available in Tokyo and
41:07
Osaka, the vegetarian restaurants are Japanese
41:10
adjacent at best or just international in general.
41:14
But what you experience Brad in in Kyoto and they're different
41:16
places, you can across Kyoto purely a Japanese meal that
41:21
happens to be vegetarian. And I would say, I would venture
41:25
to say that even people who are not vegetarians necessarily, I
41:30
would still go to those restaurants and enjoy it.
41:32
Of course don't go for something steak but but still a lovely
41:35
experience and and and very good quality food.
41:38
Yeah, the Kobe cows are are safe there.
41:40
Yeah, it would be. Yeah, You wouldn't notice.
41:42
I would venture to say that as a as a carnivore, you would you
41:46
would enjoy it just as much because they it's so much about
41:49
not only the flavor and the texture, but the attention to
41:52
detail and the setting. Satami Room, It was just
41:56
wonderful. Got a Japan trip on the radar?
42:01
You might have noticed something.
42:02
There's no shortage of Japan related content out there, this
42:06
podcast included. But you know, the hard part is
42:08
knowing what actually matters for your trip.
42:12
Should you stay here or there at another city or slow down?
42:16
Follow the popular advice or ignore it all together.
42:20
But the hotel everyone recommends or the one that
42:23
actually fits what you want? That's where a lot of folks turn
42:27
to Japan Travel Pros. We help you sort through the
42:30
choices, make better decisions and feel more confident.
42:34
Before you touchdown in Tokyo or land in Osaka, go to
42:39
japantravelpros.com. Plan to schedule a consultation.
42:45
Welcome back. We're talking with Brad today
42:46
about Japan and specifically we're just talking in the last
42:49
segment about Kyoto. And Brad, one of the things that
42:51
you mentioned is I think applicable not only to to Kyoto,
42:55
but maybe somebody for their Japan trip as a whole.
42:57
You mentioned me maybe focus not so much on the highlights.
43:02
This is something that you did in your more recent trip and the
43:05
time that you spend in Kyoto is you didn't really get to the
43:08
highlights necessarily, but more appreciated Kyoto as a whole and
43:13
some of the individual pieces and components and snapshots and
43:17
vignettes of Kyoto this time based on all your experience
43:20
with Japan. Brad, what would you tell
43:22
someone planning their first trip right now?
43:25
You're going to be able to stay in a traditional inn.
43:27
You're going to be able to eat in the corner store and in the
43:31
the little shop around the corner and in the alley.
43:33
Give yourself permission to steal your phrase, Ari.
43:36
You don't have to be a hero at travel.
43:38
You just have to be true to where you are, be respectful and
43:41
make it a great experience. And there's more than enough of
43:44
Japan, Pan and Kyoto to go around.
43:46
So if you want to stay at the Holiday Inn or the equivalent at
43:50
night and get a hamburger at night, fine, enjoy it.
43:53
And then just make the most of the days.
43:55
That actually takes a lot of pressure off, even in a single.
43:58
And most Japanese people don't do all these things in the day
44:00
because it's too much logistics. Yeah.
44:02
The most important thing is just to spend as much time doing
44:04
things you like. There's a vast array of things
44:07
to do in a cosmopolitan and ancient city, and there's going
44:11
to be something that you like that's also a great experience.
44:14
For example, I have a 10 year old son.
44:16
Ari mentioned the Ninja Museum. I kind of cringed at the idea of
44:20
it, but it was one of the coolest things we did.
44:23
It turns out it's extremely tastefully done and it's a
44:27
history of museum, basically history of samurai.
44:30
That's interesting, that turns out that's war, that's politics.
44:33
That's the culture of having kids do it, having women
44:37
masquerade as boys with mustaches on the masks and all
44:40
these things I never expected in, you know, on the surface was
44:44
total tourist trap, waste of precious time in this classic
44:48
city. And so it turned out to be
44:51
great. And, and there were many cases
44:52
we went to we, we had to go to a vegetarian one because we wanted
44:55
to eat vegetarian. Turns out that Aryaki found us
44:59
this really hip, really delicious place.
45:01
I've never had, I didn't know you could do that with ramen,
45:04
but it was amazing. And so we were able to eat the
45:08
food we wanted, but have a pleasant surprise in the heart
45:12
of Kyoto. And it was comfortable for us,
45:15
but also delicious and a new experience.
45:18
And it was just great. And so just extrapolate that to
45:20
whatever your version of enjoyment is.
45:23
Give yourself permission, as Ari says, to be comfortable and to
45:27
do what you need to do to get engaged.
45:29
Really good advice. That's something that we all do
45:31
it when we travel, and not just to Japan.
45:33
Maybe Japan's more of a hyper compressed, massively focused
45:38
example of it, but that we think, Oh my God, I have to make
45:42
the best of every single waking minute or I failed myself or I
45:46
failed my family. And we're not going to have
45:48
these memories. And it turns out that the the
45:49
best memories you have are of not necessarily random
45:52
experiences, but yeah, kind of random experiences are just kind
45:55
of things that you just, you found yourself because you
45:57
weren't paying attention to the checklist.
45:59
Now you're paying attention to what's actually out there.
46:01
Another one, this is this might be dated if we have robot cars
46:05
in a few years, but get the Go taxi app.
46:07
There were many times when in the spirit of conquering Japan
46:10
and quote UN quote, like winning at you know, the experience by
46:14
surmounting a great challenge. I wanted to navigate the trains,
46:17
get everyone on there, but it would have taken three times as
46:20
long and cost a little bit less, but not that much given we don't
46:25
have that many that many hours in the city.
46:27
And there were a few times we just got in the car, had a 25
46:31
minute nap or rest with jet lag, got to the other place a little
46:35
fresher and much and had much more time to spend at the Golden
46:39
Pavilion, for example, or in this other district that we
46:42
wanted to see. I never would have thought I
46:44
would have been doing that before because I get, I want to
46:47
get out of the smartphone and into the travel experience, but
46:51
it really helped us actually optimize the travel experience.
46:54
That was a very, very nice surprise.
46:56
The. Top means of conveyance by
46:58
distance in Tokyo or Osaka is probably train or a public
47:03
transit train and bus combination, something like
47:05
that. And then #2 walking and maybe
47:09
the occasional taxi. But in Kyoto, public
47:12
transportation is not a great option.
47:13
If you're traveling as a group on a bus in Kyoto and there are
47:16
locals, you might be getting some, some nasty looks because
47:20
what they're, what they're effectively telling you is why
47:22
the heck didn't you just take a taxi?
47:24
And thank you for trying to win the game, because that's Brad.
47:27
I think you put it well. It's like, Oh no, no, Japanese
47:30
only use public transit. Therefore we have to, we have to
47:32
use public transit when we're in Japan.
47:34
Japanese people use taxis all the time.
47:35
Go Taxi is a Japanese app. The Uber app will work in Japan,
47:39
but it effectively calls you a taxi or a car service.
47:41
Anyway. The when in Rome approach to say
47:43
when in Kyoto would be probably your biggest means of conveyance
47:46
might be walking and then number 2 taxi and then third distance.
47:50
Third would be public transit. Because chances are the trainer,
47:53
the bus is not going to where you want it to go.
47:55
And even if it does, it's going to be circuitous.
47:57
You're not going to enjoy it if there's more than one of you.
47:59
Take a taxi. Yeah, it was really a godsend,
48:02
especially there. So as you say, like it is
48:04
different. Kyoto taxis were pleasant,
48:06
really helpful. Tokyo not that enjoyable.
48:10
Would have been faster to walk half the time.
48:12
And then it's those in betweens that are really going to make
48:14
your trip. We did walk between, I want to
48:17
say Shibuya. What is north of Shibuya?
48:20
Harajuku. And we walked and it was super
48:24
cool. We saw some old Olympic stadiums
48:27
and we saw, you know, design studios and all these things
48:31
that are there, but you're not going to see them in, you know,
48:34
unless you're on the ground. And so that was, again, one of
48:37
the nice, pleasant surprises of those 45 minutes we really
48:41
enjoyed. What can repeat visitors to
48:43
Japan do differently? Maybe it's the fact that they've
48:45
checked off some of the highlights on their first trip
48:47
and now they can do this. Or what?
48:49
What do you learn? This is something I would tell
48:51
myself, and I'm telling myself, too.
48:54
I would like to go to a new place every time.
48:56
So I'd like to go someplace that's not familiar.
48:58
Maybe it's famous, maybe it's not.
49:00
It's OK if it's famous but haven't been there.
49:01
Like, I've never been to Hokkaido.
49:04
And I came from, as you did, Ari, a place that's cold in the
49:07
winter. And there was a winter festival
49:09
in our place and a winter festival in Sapporo.
49:11
And it looks so cool. And we were sister cities and
49:13
I've never been there. So I'd really like to go see the
49:15
ice festival at the winter festival and see the ice, ice
49:18
sculptures there. And also I'd like to go back to
49:20
Tokyo Tower talking about things that look like tourist traps.
49:23
We also went up there and I thought it would be a 45 minute
49:26
thing and we were there for three hours because it turns out
49:28
if you're on the top of this amazing city, you see things
49:31
differently. And I could have been there for
49:33
three more hours if there was better food.
49:35
And, you know, we weren't trying to get to the next thing that we
49:37
had to get to at a certain time. But I'd go back and spend and
49:41
slow down South. One is do something new and the
49:43
other is do something you've done but do it again and do it
49:47
slower and see if you don't see something different.
49:51
It's great advice. One last question for you, Brad.
49:55
What's 1 habit or strategy or approach that you'd pass along
50:00
to to the fellow traveler? When I was living in Japan, one
50:04
of my fellow one of my colleagues who was living in are
50:06
working there also at the same time said probably after a
50:09
moment of frustration that we had had with something Japanese
50:12
or us being Westerners, whatever, all cultures make
50:15
sense in their own terms. That really made sense at the
50:18
time, made sense of a lot of things.
50:20
Otherwise you end up stubbing your toe a lot and the immature
50:25
reaction might be to blame them, blame the wall for you kicking
50:30
it. But if you see, well, why is
50:32
that wall there, right? Should have walked around it
50:35
because this or that. Or like, why are these lines on
50:39
the side of the gate by the Shinkansen?
50:41
Well, they're so you know where to stand so that people can
50:43
gracefully and easily get off quickly.
50:46
And then the people who are queued up can then quickly get
50:48
on and it all works. But if you missed that queue
50:51
like I did, you end up kind of in the way I could get mad that
50:55
all these people were coming off the train right in front of me
50:57
and like, shoving us out of the way.
50:58
Or maybe we were in the wrong place.
51:00
And once I realized we were in the wrong place and how artfully
51:03
the whole place is arranged, it all made sense.
51:05
And again, we won't make that mistake again.
51:07
But I also appreciate, Wow, 50. Every 15 minutes, this thing
51:11
goes 203 hundred miles an hour to the next stop.
51:14
That's pretty spectacular. We have to get out of our own
51:17
way sometimes. Again, that perspective all
51:20
cultures make sense in their own terms, has helped me see a lot
51:24
of things differently and question my assumptions to the
51:27
point where I could could get to appreciation and learning.
51:36
Big thanks to Brad for joining us in this episode.
51:38
I'm so glad that you came on board here and you're the 1st
51:40
guest that we had in this podcast.
51:42
Not just because we've known each other a long time, but
51:45
really, you think about it. Brad and I both came to Japan
51:48
from the same starting point. We've had very different
51:50
experiences over time, but you can also see the similarities
51:53
and some of the observations that we have along the way.
51:56
That's part of what I liked about this conversation.
51:59
There are so many things. We talked about food, talked
52:01
about Kyoto, about the good old days in Japan.
52:04
But. Underneath that, if you think
52:06
about it, what we're really talking about is paying
52:09
attention to the trip that you're on right now or the trip
52:13
that you're about to take. Yeah, the screen can help, the
52:16
research can help, the map can help.
52:18
But at some point, you got to look up, you got to experience
52:21
the place that you're at. Be sure to follow the Japan
52:25
Travel Pros podcast so you don't miss future episodes.
52:28
And if you're enjoying the show, a rating, a review on your
52:31
podcast app is a great way to help other travelers find us.
52:35
Thanks for listening. Until next time, safe travels.