Reality of Life in the BIGGEST MEGACITY on Earth (Tokyo, Japan)

After two weeks exploring the land of the rising sun, it's finally time to head to the capital. And after a short train ride downhill from Mount Fuji, we arrive in the biggest city on planet earth. Welcome to the largest, busiest and arguably craziest city in the world. Tokyo is gargantuan and with almost 40 million people squeezed into its metropolitan area, it's truly like no other Every bit of space and real estate in Tokyo seems like it's been taken and on first impressions, it genuinely feels like every part of this modern metropolis is bursting at the seams. Walking around this buzzing capital, it's hard to imagine that Japan's actually in the mix of a demographic crisis that could cause all of that to change. But that's something we're going to explore later in the video. For now, on our last day together with the group, we really wanted to try and get a grasp on the scale of this metropolis of almost 40 million people. So we headed straight to the highest point in Shinjuku to take a look over the never-ending city scale. Tokyo is the biggest city in the world and it genuinely looks like it's never-ending. It's quite hard to comprehend how giant it is. I mean 40 million people live in the metropolitan area of Tokyo. It is literally like the size of, bigger than most European countries, right? It's just nuts. You really can't comprehend it to be honest. Makes me feel a bit queasy. Being up here does. We're going for a bit of a walk around and then later on this evening we're going for the last supper. And karaoke. And karaoke! Yeah so we've been warming up our falsetto all day and I'm feeling confident. I think I might go for a Whitney number personally. I've got it in me. Made it. It's our last night together with the group we've been touring Japan with and we are spending it in Inisakaya with the most amazing view, eating incredible local and not so local foods and reminiscing on an incredible trip before taking a walk through nighttime Tokyo. And of course, in true Tokyo style, heading to a karaoke booth. And then it was time to say goodbye which to be honest we're never too good at filming as the emotions usually take over. Okay we need to touch on something. We're all a little bit tired of hearing about it but last year in every single country we traveled to we saw record inflation and Japan is absolutely no different and inflation levels here have actually hit a 41 year high. That's absolutely the same as back home in the UK as well as in the US and it's crazy it seems that prices are skyrocketing for both locals and tourists everywhere in the world. For us personally we've always wanted to make sure that our money is sitting not just depreciating in a bank but working for us somewhere else. And it turns out a ton of our subscribers are also doing the same thing with masterworks. In the last year alone whilst our economies were turning themselves upside down, inflation was sending our grocery budgets skyrocketing and pensions in the US alone fell by over 20%. Masterworks actually paid out over 25 million dollars to those lucky investors. They achieved this by giving access to almost anyone to one of the hottest alternatives on the market contemporary fine art. In the last year by the way art prices rose an average of 29% at auction. For perspective the entire S&P 500 dropped by an overall of 20% last year. Over 680,000 people have signed up to masterworks so far and with so many of our subscribers joining masterworks are now offering special access to skip the wait list for all of our subscribers. If this is something you're interested in too then click the link in the description box below and now i'm not really sure where we are but this is definitely not Tokyo so let's head back there. Good morning from Tokyo! We're waking up together with the city today and I suggest we head to the fish market which is located literally across the whole city. It will take about an hour to get there but we are so excited to eat for the whole market so... Honestly navigating the underground system in Tokyo has not been simple. Kyoto has been a piece of cake. Everything is pretty straightforward, you know, very simple but I'm sure that Tokyo underground system makes sense but it's not quite obvious when you are not local. It's definitely been interesting. Got lost a few times, took you on trains and stations but you know... Konnichiwa. Konnichiwa. Ichi custard cream. Ichi strawberry yogurt. Thank you. Pepper, pepper. Arigatou gozaimasu. Thank you. Octopus. Shrimp, octopus and ginger cake. Yeah, fish cake I guess. I mean you've already tried it but try it on camera. It's squidgy. There's some cabbage in there. Yeah, the cabbage is really nice. Mmm, I see a big bit of octopus here. Beautiful. Good little snack to keep us going. It's quite sweet, yeah. It is sweet, yeah. It's not very fishy. And the ginger is not too strong, right? It's just a slight kick to it. Yeah. So the amount of people on this market was actually insane and some queues were that long that you weren't allowed to queue anymore. It all got a bit much for us so we went upstairs into the food court part and ordered ourselves some food. Matt ordered a curry and I ordered a set of flourash tempura. I mean some people would call it a disaster. I would call it an experience. I mean the food looks good. It does. I don't think it's a disaster at all. I don't know why. I expected the market to be different. But we were talking about it with you. For some reason I expected it to be some sort of a wet market with locals and stuff. It's so light and fresh. It's squid. It's not chewy at all. It just goes right in your mouth. It's so good. It's really hot. Do you want to try some? It's so flaky. Mmm. The batter is so light and gentle. That's a squid isn't it? That is so so nice. I was going to say sorry Britain but that's better than fish and chips. What a surprise. What a shock. The time has come. We're here with this mochi and everyone's been asking me where to buy them from. I think it's been the best advertisement of this mochi. We should have been paid to eat them. I know. Which one shall we go first? Can you remember what one's what? It will be a surprise. I mean I love mochi. But it's a very what do you say? Stodgy consistency. I don't think it's actually for everyone because it's quite gloopy in a way. It's very interesting. I didn't expect it to be red bean paste. But it's essentially a rice cake with some filling inside. And you know what? Fresh fruit goes perfectly with it. It just cuts through this texture and lifts it up. I thought it would be. So one of the first things we notice walking around the city and it's hard not to miss is on every single street corner there's a vending machine. Sometimes three or four next to one another. And they sell everything from hot drinks to food. And we were reading about the vending machines here in Tokyo and what's really interesting is the reason there is so many is because in a city of 37 million people as you can imagine, space is of the essence. So these were put in and people buy them as a franchise in order to make money as opposed to shops. Because the rent for shops and for space is so expensive here in the city. Getting yourself a vending machine that just takes a little bit of space and can earn you some money on the side is a great investment for a lot of people here in Tokyo. Interesting. Actually on that note regarding the vending machines they're actually one of the only places in the entire city where you'll see bins. There's no bins in the streets here in Tokyo as opposed to certainly European cities. But what's interesting is there is no rubbish anywhere. And that's been the same throughout the whole of Japan. Since being here it's been really interesting to watch people as they finish their drinks for example and instead of looking around slyly like people may do at home and lobbing it in a street corner people pack up their rubbish after them and take them until they find a bin which is either next to one of the vending machines or in like a 7-Eleven or anything like that. And on the subject of the space again in Japan we've seen these tiny space-saving cars that seem to exist only in Japan they're so funny looking but at the same time kind of cool. I would love to have one. Yeah they're really practical as well right? In a city like this they're so practical and you see them parked in the garages so tightly and they just jut out finish right on the road. Hello, he doesn't like them. Calm down lads. They look like little loaves of bread. Yeah. Japanese buhankas. So we're walking through one of the main business districts here in Tokyo at the moment and for those of you who didn't know Japan is the world's third biggest economy and for a country with a population of only 125 million that's quite some feat. And in order to retain that status and to keep the economy growing the people here in Japan need to work an awful awful lot. Japan's known around the world for their incredibly long working hours and there's actually a saying for the people that work the long office hours here in Japan and they are salary men and here in Tokyo especially it's no surprise to see office lights glaring until 8, 9, 10 at night and actually there's a culture here in Japan that you don't leave before the boss leaves so if the boss stays in the office a lot of the workers or nearly all of the workers will sit in the office with him even if they finish their job. This is Akihabara a mecca for gamers and anime lovers from around the world. It could well be the busiest place in Japan and is absolutely buzzing with shops arcades and flashing lights. There is the main street and then there are lots of tiny streets inside as well. Wow. If we were gamers that would be our paradise. Shame we're not. I literally played I think two computer games in my entire life. Okay we've seen Akihabara with you. Most famous gaming area in Tokyo. Let's head back to our hood where we're staying. An area called Shinjuku. Heading back across Tokyo on the metro something struck us. It's so silent. As opposed to our cultures here in Japan the metro is a place for complete silence and even to catch up on some lost sleep after a long day's work. My FOMO is kicking in. I really want to see the whole city but we've been out all day literally from 8 and it's getting to 5 in the evening and we've only seen two areas so it's physically impossible. Unfortunately it takes quite a lot of time to get from A to B so I guess I just need to chill and we have to come back to Tokyo. But you know what's really fascinating is how actually huge the city is. It's really hard for me to actually fathom that and the amount of people that live here. And what is interesting is that Japan actually has a falling population. The population of Japan is aging and there are more older people than younger. And by the year of 2050 the population is supposed to drop by 30 million I think. I wonder what will happen with all these properties and apartments and all this space and all of it. This is a conversation we've been having sporadically all day where we've been walking around. It's something that's really interesting because the city is so busy, so packed in and Japan in general, everywhere we've been so far has been really busy with tourists and from internal tourists, Japanese tourists as well as residents. It's an interesting problem that the Japanese people have to adapt to Fascinating, yeah, how the economy is going to adapt, how life is going to adapt, how property prices like you said, are going to adapt. If you're investing in a property at the moment in Tokyo, I'm sure it's like the prices are sky high, right? Because as we mentioned about even like vending machines any bit of land, any bit of real estate is sought after but is that going to change going forward? I'm sure they're clever, they'll come up with a solution. I'm sure there'll be something because honestly Japan is so unique and it's definitely so unlike anywhere there are so many unique and quirky things to this country that just baffles you and everything seems to be for your convenience and the little tiny details and everything is just so thoughtful and we notice that people take their jobs, no matter what they're doing they're taking their jobs very serious and they're proud of what they're doing, no matter what it is and they're giving it their 100% I don't know whether it's a good or a bad thing but that's just the way it is. It's definitely an enigma as well there's a lot of things mixed in that contradict each other but I think it's actually the same as pretty much anywhere but yeah, I'm just after being here for over two weeks I feel like we've learned a lot and got to know the culture and the people way better than we did before and the food obviously it's crazy in a way, for me it's mental and I'm not a fan of crowds but in a way Japan and Tokyo itself is so addictive I feel like I don't want to leave I feel like I will miss this place and I will want to come back also on the thing of the crowds it's incredibly crowded but things are very ordered as well when you're in the metro, it looks like chaos there's so many people but then you look closely and you realise that everyone's queuing up everyone lets the other people off first, then they move on nobody talks on the metro as we mentioned everything's ordered, so in that way it doesn't seem as chaotic as maybe you would imagine in the first place and also going back to the falling population I think maybe in the generation of automation and the fact that Japan in general has always over the past 30-40 years been at the forefront of any technological advances you really wouldn't put it past them to adapt to whatever challenges ahead it won't it's just fascinating it's a very interesting place to be really interesting place to watch but yeah, I think Tokyo is one of my favourite cities in the world and I can't wait to be back and explore more and I think we weren't really expecting that, were we? no, I didn't expect to like it I thought it's going to be too much I was looking forward to experiencing it and seeing it, but I thought nice, I don't know 3 or 4 days is going to be enough no, definitely not, I totally agree it feels like there's so much more to see and do and you can literally turn down any street corner and there's something else and there's something going on the majority of the time that's something that you want to get involved in a.k.a. food but yeah, thanks so much for watching this video and see you in the next one! by the way, don't forget to check out Masterworks using the link in the description box below thanks again for watching this Japan series and see you in the next one!