SHINKANSEN to OSAKA - REAL First Impressions of Japan

I'm just spinning around here because we're in a crossing with so many lights around me right now. Good morning. Welcome to day one of our Japan bullet train rail pass week across Japan. All right we're back to the airport. We decided we don't like Japan so we're going home. Nah, just kidding. To get our bullet train passes started we have to do it from here. We just arrived back to the airport and these are like 100 vending machines for toys. Japanese capsule toy gacha. Which do you want? Choose any. Alien from Toy Story. Kicking off the day right we got our Japanese coffees. They're American coffees but we need coffee to start. Now I think we're just about to get our passes. So this is it we have to come here to exchange our online tickets to get our actual passes. And then we have to go and get our tickets. Ah okay. So these are our passes then we get our tickets. This is so complicated. So please pick up this one first. I need to remember this for later. So in the next morning vlog I will be saying ohayou. So now we have our rail passes. This is basically our ticket to the rest of Japan for the next week. We booked it beforehand. We got a seven day pass which was 190 pounds. That basically gives you unlimited train travel around Japan. You have to book it before you arrive to the country and then pick it up here. But everyone's told me that's the best way to get around. So what we're going to do today is we only have a seven day pass so we're going to head straight through Tokyo and out the other side and go all the way to Osaka and then sort of work our way back from there. So first stop after like a four hour journey will be Osaka. Awesome first train journey on the Japan rail pass. Let's go. First time for the Shinkansen. We've now arrived to Tokyo station. We need to change so I think we need to go out from this more local train and then get the Shinkansen bullet train. I love these things and Japan is the place for them. They were just like little sushi rolls. So I'm going to be getting salmon flakes. Shikuwa tempura with spicy cod roe fried fish. And all of these and I think I want to try all the sweets but then there are a lot of sweets so I don't know which one to try and then I'll try maybe too much and then there's a lot of pastry too. You're literally a kid in a candy store right now. I think this is the one we need. One thing I've noticed already is that loads of people might think before coming to Japan that it's all going to be in Japanese and you would struggle to understand. But honestly everywhere so far also has the English option. I think that's just it's globalization really. That's what's happening with the world. There's always the English option as well which makes it very easy and obviously I'm very fortunate to have English as a first language. But yeah everywhere so far anyway for the first day it's been pretty much in Japanese and English. So this is us. 10.40. How's that baked cheese? Ready to settle in for the next two and a half hours which seems long but actually it's 400 kilometers. We're going in two and a half hours to Osaka. We're about two hours in and so far it's been a very nice, comfortable and I have much more to report than that. Some pretty nice views outside but it's also very cloudy and a bit rainy today but it's a nice countryside. We have about half an hour left and then we're going to arrive to Osaka. We made it to Osaka! This is Shin... I think it's Shin? Shin Osaka but we need to go into town proper so we need to go into actual Osaka which means we need to jump again on the subway but then we'll be in the middle and we'll be around where we're staying to go and explore. Yeah it's a really easy journey actually. Just very, very smooth. Really easy. One thing I just found out because I never do a lot of research, JR lines are included. Subways are not. So if you want to get subways on metro and stuff that's extra. So we're going to try and figure out a way just to use our rail pass as much as possible. Okay now on to the metro. Subway. Solid for about two dollars. This is becoming a hectic travel day. Almost. We're now in the neighborhood we're going to be staying in. It's raining a bit but spirits are high. Still the first full day in Japan. We're almost here. Hopefully we can just drop off our bags and then run around and explore a bit more of Osaka besides just the trains. I think we're just up here on this homely neighborhood. Vending machines everywhere. Vending machine. This is Cozy. He says 56. I'm not sure how. Yeah not us. Yeah we were too heavy. That would have been dangerous. I think we're here. This is our apartment. We've booked it for two nights. What? There's three stories like that upstairs. Three stories? It goes up two more floors. Yeah this is why we can't get up. There's a code to the elevator to get up to the floor. You need to press 6446 and then the key is in the key box which also has a code. It's like an escape room. You dial the numbers. We're out. Escape room finished. But in the end I think we got a nice find. Wow. I've heard about everything being small and compact in Tokyo. Oh sorry here in Japan. But look at the size of this apartment. And this is downstairs and we have an upstairs. You've got a bathroom and a shower here as well. Oh nice. So much room. Oh cool. Look at this. Testing out my seat now. Maybe we'll eat here later or just get some sake. Double. Bedroom. So this whole place if you're watching this thinking all right yeah but that looks really expensive. I can't afford it. That's 100 pound a night or whatever. I found this this morning on bookie.com as we were on the way to Tokyo and it was it came up on bookie.com as 27 pound for two nights for three of us. Then I clicked on it to reserve it because I thought that's insane and it added a cleaning fee of another 47 pounds. But overall that's still only 75 pound between three of us which means it's 25 pound each for two nights so only 12 pound a night. That's really cheap I think for a place like this in Japan in Osaka and way cheaper than I expected it to be. We've got like a full big apartment with our own bedrooms. Loads of space for just about 15 dollars each a night. Second time I'm filming a Japanese toilet but look. We decided to come straight out and start exploring and walking around Osaka. It's a little bit colder than the Philippines. I've got my jumper on which I haven't worn in about two months. We're heading straight to a place called Dotonbori to find the street food there. I have no real idea what to do here other than finding food. Right I'm walking next to the main road now and you can hear how quiet it is. If I compare that to just yesterday in the Philippines. It's completely different. There's loads of cars going along here but hardly any noise. I'm loving this already and I'm so glad I decided to daily vlog this whole week because I just feel inspired to film everything and talk about it because it's all new and interesting to me and it's somewhere I've wanted to come for a long time. So yeah I'm absolutely loving it and really looking forward to the rest of the week. I'm looking forward to trying loads of this food because I'm staring at so many nice things. Spider-man's right here. Hey Spider-man. Are you excited looking at that? What is it? Oh it's toast. What is this? It's toast. It's filled with cheese fondue. It's impossible that you eat toast. It's surreal though having everything everywhere. Right these are two things that I've been told you need to try. The takoyaki and okonomiyaki. This is takoyaki and I was told to try this. I'm not exactly sure what's in it. I can't remember but I've really been told to try this. It's so hot. It's still oh so hot but yeah it's tasty. Tastes like a dumpling. It's quite good but I have no idea what it has inside. Yeah I like it. I think it's better when you put the whole thing in so it melts all together. So many cool streets here. Check it out this place you order outside from the vending machine and then you go in and you can't even go in until you order. I really fancy trying that but we just ate so maybe another time. I like the idea you just order and then your food's waiting for you when you get in. Okay we have decided to go for one of the vending machine places and get some try and get some authentic ramen. I'm gonna go for the red tonkotsu ramen. No idea what that is but it sounds good and looks good. Number four. So I need to press. Can I come through? Yeah so I need to press number four but I need to put my cash first. Do this. Okay that's the amount. So one and then I go for number four. 200 change. That makes it easy. So it also says here it will take about nine minutes for cooking the noodles. Just about nine. Thank you. Yeah it was definitely under nine minutes as well. That looks good. First ramen in Japan. Let's do this. That's not really how I like it. Like nice and creamy and spicy. It's so red. Spicy? Here's the spot. We just finished our ramen. It was really good. I'm just spinning around here because we're in a crossing with so many lights around me right now. I don't know what we're doing now. One of the things I love about being in a new place is just walking around and seeing everything. So we have no plans really. We're just strolling through the city and seeing what we can see. And we found this place. Kuromon market. We were just walking around and we saw it. So I was actually also told to come to this place and find the tuna guy in the middle. I don't know if I'm going to find the tuna guy. But I was told to check out Kuromon market. I'm going to guess this is the center again. But at the moment there's no tuna guy. It is quite late. It's about 6 30. So we may be here too late. But still it's another cool place to check out. Local market. Wow look at the size of that. Wow. That's like a giant crab. This is four legs. So his body must be there. His legs are there. So they must be four foot wide. Look what we just found. Baby octopus on a stick. Oh I won't be trying one of them. Osaka is kind of also known as Japan's kitchen. And it's so easy to see why. There's just food everywhere. We've been walking around and couldn't even help ourselves from buying lots of food. And just trying loads of new things. I love doing it. But there's just food everywhere. You can't stop yourself. What an awesome first day in. Wait I'm going to pull this out. In Osaka. And the first full day in Japan. Seriously. I loved that. And I loved being back in a new country. I loved being the first time in Japan. Exploring it. Having loads of things that are new to me. I've missed this. That was really cool. Wait that's better. I said in yesterday's video that I was going to do a real first impressions now after I've had more than a few hours here. So that's what I'm going to do now. First impressions of Japan. I really like all the city streets. It seems very clean and new and modern. Like I said there was loads of electric cars around Osaka. It was really quiet. Things were very orderly. And that is quite a contrast to the places I've been in the last few months. And it was just. Yeah that was really refreshing. The food. I'm going to enjoy trying so much of it. Because all of it is very new to me. But it's all been great so far. And fairly reasonable. Most people have commented to me before that Japan's more expensive. And it can be quite expensive. And I think when you think about travelling there you think about it being expensive. But just this apartment and the street food and the food we've had today. Hasn't been very expensive to be honest. The food has been cheaper than some countries I've travelled to. It's probably around about Western European prices. And this was 15 dollars a night each. So that's not massively expensive. And a lot less than some people might be thinking about for Japan. Transport was massively easy. Getting the bullet train today was well very straightforward. Although you might think that everything will be in Japanese. Actually there's English everywhere as well. And you can quite easily figure it out and get around. It's all quite straightforward. You're just sort of directed to the right trains. There was only really one time today where we got a bit confused. And that was only for a few minutes. And then we figured out the right way to go. What else can I say? People have been very friendly and courteous so far. It is very quiet. I think just Japan in general is quite reserved. And people are quite quiet. But I think that's just part of the culture here. I think they've all been very friendly and polite. And just in the first 24 hours. I don't know. Overall I feel like I'm gonna love the next two weeks here. Like I said we have one week of rail pass. And then we're gonna be in Tokyo for a fair few days after. So it's almost two weeks. Yeah. Awesome start to the Japan. Those are my real first impressions. Tomorrow you're gonna see another daily vlog. But for now I'll just say again. If you enjoyed this then please let me know below what you're thinking about the Japan series so far. And any recommendations. Although to be honest by the time this comes out it's probably going to be. I've left here a month ago. But thank you anyway. For now I'll just say thank you for watching. And this is my life.