Japan Is A Real Life Gacha Game | Trash Taste #31
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- Hello and welcome to another episode of Trash Taste. I am your host once again, Garnt, and with me are the boys as per usual. - Yep. - How are you boys doing? - Good. It's the first week we've skipped of recording a Trash Taste. - Yeah, it felt weird. It felt like my, it felt weird like, because normally we record on Tuesdays. People probably figured this out.

Like, I don't know how you figured out like, some people have figured out the entire Trash Taste schedule. - I think we mentioned it in passing. And what we think is a passing comment, people might remember. - I remember I got a tweet as well. I was randomly checking Twitter, like right before about to start and someone tweeted at me saying like, "What are you gonna talk about today, Joey?" I was just like,

- Where are you? You're watching me? - Yeah, and people have figured out like some, like the recording order as opposed to like the airing order as well. There's probably like a watch order, the official Trash Taste watch order somewhere on Reddit, I don't know. - Yeah, because some of them get mixed around, right? - Yeah. - Sponsors and whatnot. But in general, you could figure out based on who's sitting where. - Yeah, yeah. - Normally. - Normally. - Unfortunately, Garnt doesn't have a guest today.

- That's how you can tell. - I'm a little sad about that Garnt, not gonna lie. - This is my second podcast in a row without a guest. - 2021 is different. - It feels good. It feels like a weight's been lifted off my shoulder. - Wow. - I'm suddenly calling all my guests. - No, I'm just here. I've just got the space by myself on the table and it's just good. It's good to be on the hosting side. - See you're lucky, right? That you weren't fucking hosting with Chris 'cause he kept making me down things. So I was sitting next to him, he was like, "Go on, go on, drink it."

- To be fair, you're a pussy drinking that sake. I wouldn't make you down. - I would have done the exact same thing. - That sake tastes like shit and I'm not gonna be forced to consume something that tastes like shit. Unless it's for a challenge and I lose, then it's my fault. - Right. - So how are you enjoying your Christmas holiday, boys?

- Well, that's when we're recording this, right? - Yeah, that's when we're recording this. - Preface, we are recording this during the Christmas holidays. - It's not 2020. - We've had our Christmas episodes, but we are enjoying our Christmas holidays right now, even though we're still technically working. - I took two days off and then I was like, right. - A whole two days. - Back to it then, back to YouTube. I don't know. Even like going one day without YouTube, I'm like, fuck, I wanna do something. Fuck, I wanna make something. I wanna entertain. I wanna be a clown.

I don't know why. - You're a clown every day, it's all right man. - I think, yeah, it's pretty some deep insecurity that happened during my childhood that makes me strive to wanna entertain. I don't know why, but yeah, I don't know. It was nice, it was fun. It's nice having, I think the difference between like a holiday that is everyone's holiday and one that you set for yourself is that when it's like,

like a national holiday, you're like, well fuck I have to, I guess. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - You're like obligated. - Yeah, yeah, but then sometimes your head space isn't in it, so you're like, man, I kind of want to take a vacation, but like I don't want to. But then when, if you do it yourself, you hype yourself up for it. You're like, I'm taking this time off. No one's going to tell me what to do. But on Christmas you're like, fuck, I kind of want to like, I don't want to like make a video, I want to fuck around.

- Yeah, I don't know what it is about the Christmas holidays. Well, I've always ended up working during the Christmas holidays because I've had my yearly videos that probably won't happen this year, but that's probably, that's mostly what I'm working on during the Christmas holidays. And then I've realized that, you know, as YouTubers, you need to take a fucking break, right? - Yeah, yeah. - And it feels,

I don't know what it is, but do you ever get, you know, sometimes we take breaks during the weekdays, right? To us, we don't like weekends don't technically exist, but I've found that taking breaks on the weekends feels a lot better than taking breaks in during the weekdays. Because it just feels nice when you know that everyone else in the country is on the break as well. - Well, except for Japan where- - Yeah, except for Japan where Christmas day is just a regular working day. - Yeah, yeah. - And also weekends are a suggestion to stop working.

- Yeah. - Not enforced. - Every holiday is a suggestion to stop working, let's be honest. - Crazy. - I went up to the North of Japan for about three or four days to go see Chris. And that was really nice. There's so much fucking snow this year. - Did he make you drink shitty sake? - No, he made me drink good sake. - Oh yeah, and also- - That's an oxymoron for Connor. - Yeah, yeah. Also it was the first time ever I did like a proper Japanese Christmas, AKA KFC. - How was it?

- It's just KFC. - It's exactly what I thought. - It's just chicken. Like it's just like a trip to KFC. Although it was kind of weird because Chris had to schedule it like, or book it. Book KFC. - Booking KFC. - Yeah, we had to book KFC. - What does the world come to?

two or three weeks in advance. - Right. - And it's also weird, it's not just like a, you not only have to book it, but you have to book like a day in time to go and pick it up as well. So it's like, not only do you have to come in on a certain day to a certain store, but it's like come between a 2:00 to 3:00 PM time bracket.

And we went there and there was just like a group of about maybe like five or six families just lining up to get their Christmas chicken from the Colonel. - I would rather die than line up for a KFC. - Yeah. And I mean, you know, it was like what? We got like a full bucket of like just a bunch of chicken wings. - As you do at KFC. - But also at the bottom of the bucket, there was like this kind of Christmas cake or like Christmas pudding. I don't know, 'cause I don't think anyone had a slice of it, but it was at the bottom of the thing. We're like, oh, that's little.

a little weird that it's just been sitting underneath this like greasy fucking chicken. - That's no way you'd wanna put a cake. - No, it was the last thing we were expecting at the bottom of the bucket to be fair. And it was like 5,000 yen for it. And it could feed maybe about three or four people.

- You paid 50 bucks for KFC on Christmas. - Yeah. - Oh my God. - I mean, I did it, Kristen. - You could have had a nice roast dinner for that. - Oh no, we ordered other food as well. - Okay, good. - But we were like, just because it was the first time for all of us, we've never had a Japanese Christmas before. So we were like, you know what? Fuck it, let's do it.

- Wouldn't do it again, to be honest. It's just KFC. - 'Cause the thing is like, this is I think the fourth year that I've been in Asia celebrating Christmas. And I gotta say, you don't really understand the entire like hype behind this, the Christmas spirit. I thought that was just like a fucking

- It's just a marketing ploy. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't understand that until I started spending Christmas outside of where countries that normally celebrate Christmas. And you can do a lot of things to make it feel Christmas-y, but having spent a few Christmases in Asia, I kind of miss that Christmas spirit because there's a few things, you can put on the Christmas songs and you can do whatever, put up the tree, but there's just something missing. I can't put my finger on it, but it just,

- It doesn't feel fully Christmassy. - I think it just has to do with the fact that at least in Japan, Christmas is not a family thing. It's like a romantic thing. And also everyone's working. So it's like- - Yeah, like I got a delivery on like as we were having our roast dinner and it was like the least, it was like the immersion breaking Christmas. The moment where- - Simulation ruined.

- I had an Amazon package and I was like, this is not Christmas. - That's the door on your red hat. Like I refuse to have this. - Wine in hand. - Yeah. Christmas simulation over. It was like that Rick and Morty episode where you're just trapped in an ultimate like this, like reality.

- To me, Christmas is like going back and reluctantly having to talk to family members about like, oh, I do YouTube. This is what I get naked online sometimes. - Yes, I make this much per year. Thank you, uncle, for asking me for the seventh time. - You're investing, right? In a pension, right? Yes, yes I am. No, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. It felt odd 'cause I feel like normally,

I didn't appreciate Christmas that much 'cause I didn't realize it was a really good way of like in my head at least, I don't know if this is because I've been, this is how I taught. It was like, this is the end of the year. Now go and restart it and then build up to all of this again. - 'Cause it's not just Christmas. It's that period between Christmas and New Year's that is just like the blank period. - Where you don't do anything. - Where it's just like, what are the rules? Nobody knows what's going on. Are the buses running? I don't know. Are the trains running? Are shops open? It's fucking anarchy.

And I love that period because it's- - Google, how long can I have leftovers for? How many Christmas dinners can I eat? - Yeah, that was like living in England. That was like one of my favorite parts of the year. It was just, as you said, like the reset of the year. It was like the entire society was just kind of goes into

- It's like a cool down, right? - Yeah, yeah, exactly right. - Whereas here it's like business as usual. - It's just business as usual. - Like supermarkets and convenience stores are open literally 24/7, even on New Year's Day. - My mom won't shut up about KFC Christmas to me. She's fascinated by it. She's like, "I heard they have KFC for Christmas, is it true?" And I'm like, "Yes, they do, mom." She's like, "Wow, how crazy is that?" And I'm like, "Yeah, it's kind of weird." To be fair, it is bizarre when you think about it. - Yeah, it is weird. - It's like, you know, just,

all the things that Japan has no interest in from like the West, right? We bring our finest things. They're like, no, no, no, none of that, none of that. And then suddenly the Colonel rocks up and he's like, listen, how about, let me pitch you this. - Y'all like Greece? - How about, let me take this absolutely nothing to do with Christmas food and somehow make it Christmas food. Who did like, oh my God, like how did they pull this off? Like I'm sure someone knows the history behind it. But like to me, even if you explain to me how it was done,

how the KFC marketing department did this. - I mean, I explained it to you last time, right? - Yeah, but even then, it still doesn't make sense to me. - I researched it and it doesn't make sense. - It was like the marketing heist of the century, I swear to God. - I swear in Japan, just normal marketing things, they just don't care about. They're like advertisements everywhere, don't care about that. Oh, there's a collaboration where I can get my favorite character poorly printed on a latte?

Oh well, a hundred bucks, hello. That drives me insane, dude. - When you see it on paper, it just sounds like a great "Pretender" episode. - It is. - It's just like, how do they pull this off? - This is like "Heist 5." This is like the OVA episode, man. When they sell Christmas to the Japanese, I'm just like- - It literally, like it is. It's bullshit. It's like some "Ocean's Eleven" shit with every marketing department. And like, they do collaborations with stuff. So this is a really common thing in Japan where they don't just market things normally. You can't just have adverts.

It's like you have to collaborate with businesses. Like I went to the supermarket and I saw like washing detergent. There's like a Bungo stray dogs collaboration. - Oh yeah, we got one with Levi on it. - Yeah, and I was like, okay, Levi, that makes sense. But like some shows it's like, why? Why does Bungo stray dogs have a collaboration with washing detergent? - To be fair, it works. I'm a weeb, it works. I see.

I see like, I see Evangelion, I see Oscar's face plastered on some coffee. I'm like, I need that coffee, man. - No, no, no, no, no. This is why I hate it because to me, right? You don't go to a fine dining like restaurant, for example, right? And they draw a fucking smiley face on your hamburger. You'd be insulted, wouldn't you?

You'd be like, no, no, no, no. Where's my steak? Why is there a smiley on it? This is the way I see stuff. And like, if you put like characters on it or you put like this fucking smiley faces, I hate it when Disneyland does that by the way, when they put fucking smiley faces on your food, it's like, what is my food a joke to you? I wanna eat a fuck, okay, nevermind. I'm gonna go for rent. But like, to me, you're making the product seem more childish by putting stuff on it. So when I see these collaborations, like most of the time with like, especially with the animes at the cafes, I'm like, this is all disgusting.

You're selling me a $3 latte for 10 times the price.

- I mean, I feel like it's just, it's very similar to what they do in the West with celebrities, but like, you know. - You don't get like a Kim Kardashian latte. - Didn't Travis Scott just do like a fucking McDonald's meal? Wasn't that insanely successful as well? - Yeah, but wait, okay, first of all, I'm near certain, correct me if I'm wrong, they didn't plaster his face on it. - I'm pretty sure they had like a specific menu that was the Travis Scott meal.

- But it didn't have like a face on it. Like I ordered, I went to the "Promised Neverland" collaboration thing and there was a cafe and you could get one of the characters of the "Promised Neverland" printed on your latte. And I thought, okay, fine.

It's $10 by the way, if you wanna add that, which is fucking ridiculous for a subpar latte. - With stuff like that though, you have to understand that the fans will pay any amount of money for that one photo. - Right, right. So then I go to have it and I go to drink it. And then as I drink this latte, like this film of like the plastic shit that they printed it on goes in my mouth and I'm like,

Like God, it's disgusting. It's vile. I don't have to peel shit off my coffee to eat it. So I'm here scooping it out, ruining this picture they printed on it. And I just ended up hating all of it. I don't care how much of a fan I am of something. I don't want that shit printed on my food. - I mean, that's kind of on you then for going to that cafe, right? Like you could have easily just gone to a Starbucks, right? - Well, because the thing is, if you go to the exhibition or whatever, you go to these things. They're normally not that like, there's like enough there if you're a fan, right? But then like you have to obligatory go to the gift shop and the cafe,

You know, you have to. And you know, the gift shop sometimes has some good stuff, but some stuff that I don't care about, like they're obsessed with making coasters of characters. - It's not just the coasters. I've noticed that as well because it's, they're putting Gacha into it as well. - It's a blind box of coasters. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you wanna collect the character you actually like, you gotta buy more shit, right? You gotta buy an extra meal. 'Cause that was exactly the same thing as when I went to the Fate Museum as well. - Scams, man.

It's like being a kid all over again with the Happy Meal toys. - Yeah. - Man, I remember one time I really, Burger King were doing this collaboration with like SpongeBob toys.

And I was like, "Mom, listen, this is the third Patrick Star I've had, mom. Can you please go and do like a Karen thing and get me the other toy?" - Yeah, my parents used to do that all the time. - She would always go up and ask, but sometimes they'd be like, "No." - Really? - Yeah. - I've never heard of someone saying no. - Yeah. - Really? - Yeah. - They're usually just like, "Whatever, I don't get paid enough to fuck it up." - Yeah, exactly right. - And it's like, "I don't control the gacha, I just fucking give it to you, I don't care. I get paid $6 an hour, I'm just gonna give it to you."

But yeah, I'm not a big fan of the collaboration cafes. I just feel like you don't really get that good of an experience of the show. - I feel like a collaboration cafes are a bit tacky. - Shit, just say it. - No, yes, it's tacky. I feel like most anime cafes are like that. I've never been to like an anime cafe and been impressed by it. - 'Cause it's like you go into this room that's like a normal size cafe and you're like, oh,

they've just plastered paintings of the characters in the shows on the wall. Wow, look at that. - It's like they don't even get creative with it. Like I would say I've been to quite a few because Aki likes to do videos on it. But I'd say the only, I've only ever been to two collaborative cafes where I was just like, I would go back and that's the Pokemon cafe and the Kirby cafe.

But that's just because Nintendo has just so much bigger of a budget that they can afford to get a little more creative with it. - Yeah, there's so many of them. You go and watch a YouTube video of someone like going to a cafe and it's like, you could see these YouTubers desperately trying to get like seven minutes out of this cafe. At the end of the day, it's just like, it's literally just paintings on a wall

- Yeah, I went to the weathering with you cafe and that shit was so fucking lame. - It's 'cause it's the same formula every time. And if you come to Japan, come to like one anime cafe and then realize that that's the experience for every cafe. The way I see it is that you come once as a tourist and you're like, that was cool. And then you just don't go to any others because they're all the same.

- I was gonna say like also how they get you with all these like anime cafes is that they're only open for limited amounts of time, right? - They wouldn't fucking make money if they were. - There's a sense of urgency where it's like, oh, the Promised Neverland Cafe is only open for two weeks. I mean, I watch Promised Neverland, let's go. And then you go and you get disappointed and before you can file a complaint, it's gone. - The food was vile as well. - Of course it is, it's all microwaved food or whatever. - The Kirby Cafe though had some really good food.

I was actually like, wow. - I've never heard someone be like, you must try this souffle. You must go to the Square Enix Collaboration Cafe for the best. - It's not like going to the JoJo bar where there was obviously like a fan of JoJo who like personalized these cocktails and these drinks. It's all sponsored. - It's all corporate.

businessmen stamping like, "Hmm, yes, collaboration." What can we do? Coasters, let's print the character on a latte and put some anime posters up and then sell a bunch of clear files. - I realize you're probably like breaking so many dreams right now by explaining how shit they are.

- Listen, if you come here on like a visiting, you'll probably find it interesting if there's a show you really like, but in general- - But 90% of them are really lame. - Yeah, like the cafe is always the lowest point to any like big anime event. 'Cause I went to the Fae Cafe, but that was the Fae Cafe in the Fae Museum. And the museum, the exhibition actually was fucking awesome. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, 'cause you got to see the entire fucking history of this franchise.

of not just fate, but like the entire like type moon universe and everything like that. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. See that's cool if it's like a, like, 'cause I went to the Konosuba cafe, but that was in par with the Konosuba movie. So you can only go to this cafe if you bought tickets to the movie. So that was like, okay, you know, it's like a little bonus thing, but I wouldn't go all the way to central Tokyo to go to a fucking Konosuba cafe. Like it's just not worth it. - Like I definitely wouldn't recommend going to any pop-up cafe.

If something's limited time, then they have not put effort into it. - No, no. - Dude, the best cafe I went to is actually like the one I made a video on, which is like the 3D latte art. That cafe is so fucking good. - I'm going to suck your own dick there. Just like, I'm gonna say the only good cafe I've been to is the one that I made a video on. - I wouldn't make a video on it if I didn't think it was good, right? - Yeah, but again, that's like a permanent cafe.

- That's bad, 'cause you can literally, the best part about that thing is you can take in like anything that you want, you're like, make it 3D. They'll find a way to do it. It's so fucking cool. Also that guy on Twitter shit posts like crazy. The owner is so good, so funny. - Yeah, that's the thing is like, again, the reason why I like the Pokemon Cafe and the Kirby Cafe so good is because they're permanent.

- Yeah, they're always there. - So every season they're like, oh, we can bring out something a little bit more experimental. If it doesn't work, take it out. - Nintendo are really good at doing like, I mean, have you seen the new theme park they're releasing? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's opening February, right? - My God. I saw a picture of that and I thought, wow, Legoland's really improved, hasn't it? 'Cause I didn't think it was real at first. - I usually hate amusement parks, but it's the first time I'm like, yeah, I'm going. - Well, because you wanna go now before it opens up to tourists. - Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

- But knowing Japan is gonna be another fucking lottery to get those tickets. And I fucking hate that. Have we talked about that? - No, I don't think we've talked about that. - Okay, so I watched the video of, what's the guy's name? Shigeru Miyamoto. - Yeah.

like giving a tour of it. And you get like a bracelet that you can like hit shit with and like there's like keys and stuff. - Really? - Dude, it looks bad-ass. Like I felt like a 10 year old watching him like talk about it. I'm like, yo! - I saw a Japanese YouTuber who got like first access ever as a YouTuber. But he's also been, it's Hikakin, the Japanese YouTuber. - Oh, of course. - But he's been sponsored by USJ and Nintendo in the past. - Well, he's literally like Japan's like YouTuber. Oh, Hikakin. - Yeah. - Because one time the,

like I had a policeman that was asked me like, "What do you do?" And I was like, "YouTuber." He's like, "Oh, like Hikakin." - Like, "No, not like Hikakin." - I'm like, "Yeah, Hikakin, man." Like, "Yeah, dude, yeah, whatever." Like Hikakin and YouTuber are like synonymous. - Yeah, yeah, pretty much. - Which is like strange.

But yeah, we've never talked about the lottery system. - So this is how you get tickets in Japan basically. - This is better than scalping. Scalping is people who buy a shit ton of things. - And then just jack up prices. - People do that too. - I mean, it's just,

- It's in theory to stop that from happening. - Right. But like, for example, when the Olympics, for example, we don't know if that's gonna be happening next year, but- - They've already announced that it will be. We'll see, I reckon it will happen no matter what, but it'll be interesting to see how they'll do it. - Yeah, exactly. But like with the Olympics, for example, they did a lot, it's so dumb. So they do a lottery that you enter

And it's like a lottery to get a certain amount of tickets. So this is how we do it. So like when I went to the persona five concert, it was a lottery system, but it was really weird because it was like, you go into the lottery to get a certain number of tickets and they're different lotteries. So it's like, if you want to go just by yourself, you enter the lottery to get one ticket, but there's another lottery to get two tickets or three tickets or four tickets.

And just because you enter into one of them, it's not guaranteed that you're gonna get those tickets. - Yeah. - But then what it is is that you might think, oh, okay, so if you win the lottery, then you just get the tickets, right? No, you get the right to purchase the tickets.

Japan have figured out a way to gachify every process possible, man. - Yeah, I mean, it's also, I also saw that you could get some of the tickets, but you could only be entered into some of them if you bought like a Panasonic device. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So like they were like giving away some of the tickets to go, I was like, what the fuck? - And also the shitty thing as well is that like, say you enter the lottery to get four tickets, right? But you're not sure if you're gonna get it. So you want to enter multiple times.

But here's the kicker, say you win twice in that four ticket lottery, you're forced to pay for those eight tickets. You can't back out of that shit. Like you're actually forced. Like even if it's only four people that you're going with and you just did another lottery for backup, you have to buy eight tickets.

- It just doesn't make sense to me. - It just doesn't make sense. - I mean, I understand in theory why they do it, but I feel like this is like trying to put out a fire with cooking oil. You know what I mean? - It's just the most roundabout bullshit time consuming way to do it. And I guarantee Nintendo Land is gonna do the same thing. - Yeah. - Probably. I mean, Nintendo haven't got the best rep

They've been like fucking everything up. I can't believe that man. - Nintendo and DMCA are like that right now. - Yeah. With the stuff with the smash tournaments, did you see that as well? That was a while back. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Did you not see that? - No, I didn't see that. - Basically they like just,

just cease and desisted a big tournament that had been going on for a while. And everyone was like the fuck, 'cause they were using, so obviously the net code of the Switch Smash Brothers is pretty garbage. - Yeah. - So people fan modded their own version of it that's much better. - Oh, okay. - It's called like Slippy or something. - And they didn't allow that. - Because they were gonna use that one. - I love how it's called Slippy. - Yeah, because it actually runs smoothly 'cause Nintendo Online sucks and always has sucked. And the fact that they pay for it is kind of a joke.

'Cause you don't really get anything out of it. Like it's awful, it's so bad. Like I love Nintendo, but God damn is that online suck. - Yeah, they really need to fix that shit. - And so they cease and desisted them. And then they were also sponsoring a Splatoon tournament, right? And guess how much the, guess what the prize was for the, so they were giving the prize 'cause Nintendo like sanctioned event. They're giving the top prize for a team of five versus five was a $25 Nintendo eShop gift card.

- Oh my God. - And then they canceled the event 'cause one of the teams had something like free Smash or something. Or like had something along the lines of like Nintendo. Like for solidarity with the Smash Bros. - A lot of the top prize, you can't even pay for two. - You can't even split.

- You can't even pay for the game, you fucking tournament user. - It's just funny because it's like, for some reason, Nintendo just wants their fucking IPs to die. Like, I don't get it. - Riot Games are sweating, man. They're just like, "Oh, there's a new competitor in esports, see you now."

- It's wild to me. 'Cause you just see the complete difference again, like you said, Riot, right? - Yeah. - And you have the fucking, what is it? The Baron power, Red Bull power play. - The Red Bull power play. - The Mercedes drive to victory. Like they're fully embracing like becoming sports and Nintendo's like none of that.

- The state farm analyst desk. God, I remember watching worlds this year and it was so weird just seeing like literally everything monetized. - It's literally like watching an American. - I say that drinking my G Fuel out of my G Fuel cup. Thank you G Fuel for sponsoring Trash Taste. There, I said it. - It is funny how it's become like American football where like,

Every single part of the game is like sponsored. And then you, again, you have the complete opposite where Nintendo is like, yeah, we don't want to put any of this. 'Cause Nintendo could make money off it if they really wanted to. They would be in charge of this, but they just have no interest in it. - No. - I mean, you know, we've- - I mean, they're probably already making enough as is already. - Well, that's the Japanese mindset, isn't it? They're like, we've made enough doing it the way we like. We don't want to make more money.

But like, I guess it was just so odd for a business to say. Because I think, what was it? Like last year Nintendo was the most cash rich company in Japan. - Yeah. - Which is insane. - I think there's something is slightly wrong with that statement. It's not that they don't wanna make more money. 'Cause from like my experience working with Japanese money, Japanese companies, they wanna make as much money as possible. But they only wanna make

as much money as possible using the methods they like. - It's not that they don't wanna make money, it's that they don't know how to make money in other ways. - Exactly, exactly. Because they're like, "E-sports?" - Well, I think it's where if you ask someone like, if you ask me, "Connor, you can make $10 guaranteed, "or Connor, you can make $100 by pushing yourself "and being a little crazy, "and it might go horribly wrong." Of course, every time I'm gonna be like, "100 bucks, let's do it." - Yeah, of course, but- - But the Japanese companies don't say it that way.

- Yeah, but the Japanese company is like, yeah, there's one person in the company that wants to get creative, but he has to ask 60 other people for yes. And that might take a while. - And by the time they always say, yeah, a new trend's come out. - I get it because almost, if you're the head of these companies, you don't wanna make a hundred odd people lose their job.

So you go the safe route. But sometimes the safe route can just lead to being stagnant. - Yeah, but also it's like how detrimental could it be if like one thing doesn't work out right? Like again, Nintendo is the most cash rich company in Japan, right? It's like how much do they have to lose? - It sucks 'cause you just, everyone like wants Nintendo to just,

- Get their shit together. - 'Cause everyone fucking loves, everyone wants to like fucking see Nintendo. - Everyone's cheering for Nintendo just to do the right thing. You know what I mean? - It's literally the opposite of like EA where everyone just wants EA to keep fucking up and keep fucking up to the point where laws have to be made. But with Nintendo, everyone just wants to see

It's like in the, you know, you have those typical shows where, you know, the brother is addicted to drugs and the whole family is super nice. And it's like, come on, just please stop. Just come on, get back on your feet, man. Come on. That's what she intended. How many chances do we have to give you? How many rehabs do we need to put you through to see you get back on track? - Especially after all the fucking

that they were taking these last couple of years. - Yeah, they were killing it. - They were just like killing every E3. Everyone was like, "Yep, Nintendo King." - Yeah, exactly. - "Fuck everybody else." And now they just like, "We haven't had a Nail in a while. Let's give it a couple of Ls." - People fucking lost their shit when they brought out literal cardboard. Like this is a company that can release cardboard and we'll eat it up. Like this is how much we want them to get doubled.

- I completely forgot about that. - Yeah, like, okay, at the end of the day, they do like the coolest fucking shit. - They do. Nintendo are just doing their own thing, man. - Yeah, like I played Ring Fit and I was like,

what kind of crackhead came up with this idea to like just fucking exercise with a ring and like, and it works and it's good. Like who came up with this shit? This is insane. You'll never see this from any other company. - It seems like creatively they will take any fucking risk possible. But like on a business sense, they're like, no, no, we do not do business here. We only make things, business is not allowed. - This episode is sponsored by ExpressVPN. Going online without ExpressVPN is like not having a case on your phone.

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people at Nintendo and they obviously let them do the crazy ideas. Like they released the Mario cart, like AR. Did you see that? - No. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - You basically like get your own RC cars with cameras in them that can- - Oh no, I saw that, I saw that. - Which is again, another crazy- - Fucking cool. - It's so cool. 99% of people can't do this 'cause I don't have the living room space. I actually do, but.

but I mean, most people. - You can't be bothered. - Yeah, also the thought of having to put a track down and then clean it up. - Yeah, exactly. - I mean, just the whole concept of Mario Maker, right? - Yeah, that's fucking awesome. - Clearly they're embracing their fans' creative side. - God, I love watching Mario Maker videos on YouTube. They're so fun. - Yeah, it's fucking cool. But at the same time, they're like,

- Mario Party online? No, I never heard of that. - That is the biggest missed opportunity they've ever done. - You just said three magical words that I didn't think I needed to hear. And then I was just like, why have I never thought of this before? - It's like that meme of like, whisper the three sexiest words into my ear.

- Mario Party online. - I can't believe they released Super Mario Party in 2018, and it didn't have online play, and it had like four maps, and they were shit. Sorry, I was so disappointed, 'cause I fucking love Mario Party. - I mean, Mario Party's still good LAN, but online would be fucking amazing. - I don't know if you guys play Mario Party, but- - Okay, do you feel that some part of the Mario Party experience is being next to each other and just- - Oh, shit. - I get that.

- But I would like the option- - To play online. - For streaming, right? If I need to. - But also, it's the same thing with Smash, right? Yeah, playing Smash Land next to your friends and shitting on them IRL is fun as fuck. But we very quickly found out that online is also just as fun.

- Yeah, exactly. - It's like a discord call, like that shit's fun as fuck. - It's just sad. I mean, I feel like they just hate happiness sometimes. And I thought when Super Mario Party released, it's going way too much detail. They had like four maps and they were all mid and I was like, okay, well they'll release new ones, right? They'll update it. They'll have DLC, right? - I'm a fucking liar. - So that never happened. So I guess, fuck dude, I'm still sad about that. That game could have been something.

- I'm always just hoping next Mario Party is the one that's gonna be online. - The thing is, the problem with it is like everyone else is playing chess and they're just playing fucking hungry hippos or something like that. And sometimes it's fucking fun as fuck, but other times you're just like, can you just go back to like a little bit of chess, you know, like play by the rules just a little bit, you know? - I don't get it because you know, we live in Japan and they developed the games. I do not know of any Japanese people who go around to each other's houses.

- What do you mean? - You never hear of Japanese people meeting in other people's houses. It's always at an izakaya or another place. - Yeah, maybe it's just because you don't have that many Japanese friends. - Well, the ones I do have never do that. - Oh, I do that with my Japanese friends. - Do you actually? - Yeah. - I stand corrected. - I mean, obviously not this year. - Yeah, but nowhere near as often as going out to eat in an izakaya. - Oh yeah, of course. But there's been a lot of cases where I would go out to eat and then we would go back to someone's place. - Yeah, right, but it's like,

I feel like in the West, right? We are like 90% of the time, it's like meet up at each other's house. - Because it's fucking expensive to eat out in the West. Whereas here it's like just as cheap. - Yeah, it's like the opposite where it's like, I feel like for a country that should value what seems to be like online play more, for some reason they don't include it. - No, because they don't need more like reasons to stay at home. That's already a big enough problem. - Yeah, exactly. - Are you okay? - No, no, no. - Nintendo is colluding with the government.

to get all the Japanese people to fuck. - Nintendo's like, we're saving this generation from more hikikomoris than we will ever- - What if Mario Party is Japanese Twister? They're like, this is how we get them to fuck.

Why does Maylene's face look like I said something super racist there? - Mario Party and chill. - They don't have Netflix and chill. - They'd rather create like the next fucking Tron VR sex machine toy than they would Mario Party online, let's be honest guys. - What was the thing we were talking about before again? It was the Tenga that operates with VR porn.

- Does it? - Yeah, have you seen that? - No. - It's like, so to explain, I can't believe I'm explaining Tenga. Tenga- - So Tenga is just like an owner hole or like a- - Fleshlight. - A fleshlight. - A fleshlight, basically. You stick your penis in it. - But it's branded, so it doesn't look like a fleshlight. - No, it's like really way too overly stylish for a fleshlight. - It's a classic- - It looks like a deodorant bottle.

- Yeah, it's like a classy pocket pussy. That's what it is. - What do you call it? - First class pocket pussy. I hate that word pocket pussy. I feel so wronged. - Stop saying that. - That's why they called it a Tenga, right? - Yeah, just call it a Tenga. - But basically Tenga came out with this thing where it's machine operated with like AI in it and it works in tandem with VR porn. So you'd be watching VR. So you'd put this thing on your wheelie and you'd be like,

and you don't have to touch it at all. You start the VR porn and the thing will move in time with what you're seeing on the VR porn. - Jesus Christ, man. - And I'm just like- - I don't want that. - Go to a brothel, bro. - That's the first thing I think. I'm like, just at that point, just go get laid by a real person, please.

- That's like, you're probably paying more for that tech than one session at a brothel. - I do feel like going to a brothel is a bit different, I think. You gotta be the kind of person who's like, "I'm gonna go to a brothel." I get it, you know? You're probably, if you want sex that badly, but you're too shameful to go to a brothel, I get it. You're gonna pay like, well, I don't know, 20 grand, then it's in your house, right? - Right. - You should never have visitors over.

- Yeah, exactly. - They'll be like, "What is that medieval device you have in the corner?" "Oh, that's my sex machine." - No, dude, I saw a video of it. It straight up looks like a torture device if you don't know what it is. - I'm good, I'm good. I saw that on the news they had a thing here where the government was commissioning AI companies to match people together.

because the birth rate is declining so low. But then I also feel like- - That's going into like dystopian worlds now. - Yeah, but then I can't- - That's on George Orwell. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - You can't have a world that exists where we're AI matching each other, but then also having sex machines that cater for your every need. - Yeah. - Why would I sign up to the AI matchmaking service? - Like Fifty Shades of Grey in like 2050 is just like this guy just brings out his voice

- Why would I sign up for an AI matchmaking? - Which Tenga would you like? - He's not romancing a real girl, he's romancing an anime girl. - Why would I need to sign up for AI matchmaking when I have the like Comtron 7000 in my office? You know what I mean? - What even would the AI determine? Like how do you even determine that shit?

- I don't know, it'll probably just see- - Your star sign seems to be matched very well. Capricorns and Sagittarius tend to fuck very roughly. - Knowing the Japanese, it'll probably be something like- - Blood type. - Oh, it'll be blood type earning and male to female. And it'll be, right, that's good. You're compatible with half the population. Fantastic. Nothing has changed. - I don't get Japan's obsession with blood types, man. - That's weird. - Yeah, what is- - Do you know your blood type? - I do not know my blood type. - I think mine, oh, I think. - Is that good?

- Well, I mean, I know there's three different types, right? There's OAB and AB. - Yeah, AB is the rare one, right? - AB is the rare one. - I mean, I should know because I have like a blood disease. So I used to have a medical bracelet. - You probably should know. - You probably should know, shouldn't you? - I used to have a medical bracelet that would be like, you know, if I am bleeding, please give me this thing specifically. - Do you know what your parents are? - No.

- No, but then I lost the medical bracelet. So I don't know where it is. - The one thing you probably shouldn't lose. - I haven't got a replacement. It's been like a few years now. - Are you meant to like wear that always? - Not meant to, it's just like a suggestion from the doctor. - What blows my mind though is that in Japan, at least like in Japanese schools, like you can get bullied for your blood type.

- Damn man, that's next level bullying. - It's like, oh, you're an A type. - That's just racism with extra steps, man. - That does sound like an excuse. It's like, I bet he's a filthy O type. - You can't hang out with us O types because you're an A type, right? And like, because- - Why does everyone know each other's blood type?

- Yeah, I think it's because like when you do like health checks up with checkups. - Oh yeah, we did that. - Yeah. - I haven't done mine yet, but it should be written on your thing. - That was so strange. - So to explain, since we're signed with Geeks Plus, we are technically under their health insurance and their company policy is that we have to get a health checkup once a year. - Which everyone in Japan has to do is work. - Which everyone in Japan has to do. Twice a year. - Twice? - We've been here for...

- One year already, Meilyne, but we've already had one checkup. How does that work? Okay. - Oh, that was good, isn't it? - Okay, so we're supposed to go twice, but we've only just been once. And it was weird because it was weird seeing how efficient a health system can be. - How long did it take? 'Cause I haven't gone yet. - It took about 20 minutes. - What? - It was like 30. It was like 30.

- So still that's fucking- - So in 30 minutes, you do an x-ray, your blood pressure, you get weighed, you get blood taken, you do a hearing and sight test. You talk to a doctor who will talk to you. - And then you do a cardiogram. - And a cardiogram.

- Wow, in 30 minutes. - All in 30 minutes. - Fucking hell. - It was like speed running. We were speed running health checks and they even had like fucking splits as well. - Because it was like, all right, all right. - X-ray split done. All right, blood taking split, let's go. It literally felt like that. 'Cause it was like, 'cause I was about like,

because I had some problems with my form. So I had to fill out my form again. So I was only about like five to 10 minutes behind Connor. And by the time I had just like, just started my, like, I'm gonna call it a conveyor belt. Cause that's what it felt like. It felt like I was in chicken run being processed. So I was, I had just started the process and Connor was almost done. And it was,

- It's the most efficient. - Because I saw the list of all the things that get checked up and I was like, oh, this is gonna be like an all day. - Yeah, you also have to pee the night before and bring it with you, which I just always feel weird. - Oh yeah, I do have to do that. - Carrying a vial of my piss. - A vial of piss. - Who knows what might arise. So you go into this room and it's like this really busy place in like Shinjuku, which I imagine a lot of people

that people will go to if they ever walk in Japan. And then there's like, you go to this reception area, there's like 12 desks, they're like, "All right, come here." You hand the form, they're like, "Right, go upstairs." You go upstairs, everyone's in like medical gowns, in like a really fancy office looking thing. It's really odd. And it's basically just a small room, not even that big with like couches in the middle. And then you can see the like sections, like it's a food court of like what's gonna do what. You can see everyone getting

- Oh wow. - You can see everyone. You see everyone doing everything. And then they're like, all right, go in this room, get changed. So you put the medical gown on, you come back in and then they're like, right, you have a number. So you're literally like a chicken in a farm. - It's like actually chicken. - It is, it is. - You literally are like a piece of meat being like passed around the different things. You gotta get sanitized. And so you just, they basically just come in, they're like number 124. And then you go in and then you just have to like,

hopefully understand what they're saying in Japanese. - Wow. - And then they tell you. Yeah, it was just fast. It was like boom, boom, boom. - Wow. - But I was like, fuck dude, I hate blood tests. I hate getting my blood taken. - Yeah, God, I haven't done that in a while. - And then I was like, I was just,

- Yeah, I gotta do mine next week. - It's fun. - Is it? - No, it's not. - It's as fun as a health check can be because it was something that was so alien for me, especially coming from the UK, which you know, big up the NHS for giving everyone free healthcare. But the price you pay for that is that you have to wait for everyone

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And when I say everything, even just going to the fucking GP, sometimes you're like, you got a fever or something. I've phoned up my GP and they're like, oh, we can't- - Six days. - Yeah, we can't book you in until next week. And I'm just like, great, I guess I'll just,

- Try to sleep off this fever then. - I guess I'll be sick for the next entire week then. - And by the time you can see the GP, you've already, most of the time, you've already recovered. - Yeah, I think I never see the doctor in London, but I booked three times to see it when I was like dying. And every time before the appointment, I got better and I had to cancel it.

'cause it was like, I'm already better. It literally takes a week. At least in London, it's even worse. But I remember like, I would like, I think I thought I broke my arm one time when I was a kid and I was in the emergency room and I'm like, fuck dude, I'm gonna have to get an x-ray. And they're like, yep, so come back in a week and a half and we'll give you an x-ray. And I'm like, what?

Like what do I should do in a week? What about my arm? Like, yeah, just come back in a week and a half. I'm like, but what do I do till then? They're like, oh, just don't do anything to it. I'm like, what do you mean don't do anything to it? What do I should do for a week and a half? Not move my arm? So stupid, man. - Wow, yeah. And it was so weird going to the Japanese health checkup and they started off with the x-ray. 'Cause like when I think x-ray, I'm just like, in my head, I'm just like,

I'm not getting an x-ray unless it's something serious. So this is obviously like the big checkup. This is the x-ray, but no, they fucking lubed us up with a fucking x-ray man. Like we went in there and we just like, they go, please go to the x-ray machine. - It's just like a rectangle on a wall and you just put your chest against it. It's really odd.

- Oh, 'cause when I imagine x-ray, I imagine like the lying down. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - I've always had that. It was bizarre. - I've never had an x-ray done before. - What was weird actually was the cardiogram, which where you like- - I've never had that before. - Yeah, I've never had that before. Where you like lie down on the bed and you kind of feel like a mental patient about to get lobotomized. - 'Cause they put these suckers on you.

- They put these sockets on you and then they put these appendages on your arms and legs. And yeah, it just kind of feels like you're about to get lobotomized or something. - I was waiting for the electric shock to come. I was like, "Go, hit me, go." But no, nothing happened. They had to lube me up as well. They had to put lube on you 'cause I think I had chest hair. So it doesn't go, what maybe?

- What do you mean? It's a natural medical procedure. - Maline is a- - I'm not talking about my in-depth colonoscopy, maybe. - Maline's off screen just like blushing. - Which by the way- - I like the smallest detail. - I was told if you're over 35, every year you have to have a colonoscopy.

- Really? - Yeah. - Every year you have to have a colonoscopy. - It's because in Japan, hemorrhoids is a really common problem. - How? - I'm legit serious. I think I saw something crazy, like one in four men in Japan have hemorrhoids. - Connor was telling me afterwards that he doesn't want a colonoscopy because he's afraid that it'll awaken something.

- All I'm saying is like, what if I dig it, man? - What, you're gonna like crack a fat on the fucking surgeon table? - I don't know, man, I don't know. - 'Cause I was momentarily confused. I said, Colin asked me, I'm like, wait, I'm like, which end is that?

- What the shit is that? - 'Cause I thought about it. Would you rather something go up your ass or down your throat? - Up my ass. - He thought it was going down your throat. So they check your throat or down like your stomach or whatever. - What's that called? That's a different thing, right? - That's something else. And I was like totally down. I'm like, all right, fine. Put it on my ass, dude. - Down my throat, whatever, up my ass. - No, no, no, it's the opposite way. - Oh, the opposite way. - I'd rather something up my ass than down my throat.

- Don't take that out of context. - Maylene, what would you? Then also when we were doing this health checkup as well, they would like, we had like the blood pressure thing where you put your arm and like the thing in it, which also always feels weird. - The thing that squeezes your arm. - Yeah, yeah. And then the doctor was like, "Yeah, you did good on that." And I'm like, "What does that mean?"

- What does that mean? - What is doing bad? - I'm like, explain what did good means. Your numbers are good. I'm like, yeah, explain the fucking numbers to me. What is this supposed to mean? - I put all my attention into my arm to change my blood pressure. - I was doing some like Hunter, Hunter, Nen shit on that thing. I'm like heart rate, zero.

- You did like avatar blood bending shit. It's just like, I will now make my heart rate zero so my enemies cannot find me. - Then we got our blood taken. And I remember we were, before we got our blood taken, we were talking about, you know, we were talking about how the Japanese health system, we've all had pretty good experiences with the Japanese health system because we all have like, I don't know why, we all have like that inherent fear that, you know, everyone's had a shitty experience when they have,

have taken the blood and they've just missed the vein. - Right? - Yeah. - And that happened to me. - Really? - Yeah, like it was foreshadowing. That happened to me. 'Cause I knew it as soon as he stuck the needle in. 'Cause you know, you can feel it. When like it goes straight into your vein, it feels exactly like the doctor describes. It's just like a prick, right? - Yeah.

So he sticks this needle in and I could feel immediately that something was wrong. 'Cause he was like, that's not a vein, that's muscle. And you start feeling pain. And I felt, sorry for anyone who has like a needle phobia 'cause I'm gonna, I'm not like, so I can feel him like kind of twitching the needle around in my arm. And I'm just like, how do I tell him it's not there? How do I tell him it's not there? And he does it for like a full like minute before he realizes, oh, there's no blood coming out.

And I look over. - He's just pulling up fat. - I look over and there's like, you know the vial of blood? There's like the vial was filled up that much. For like the minute he was poking my arm. - It's probably just like the scar tissue. - Yeah, I was like, "God fucking dammit, man, I knew it." - I felt so embarrassed. I was like, "Fuck, I wanna be cool and not like shit myself here." But then I was like, "Oh God." And I was like, "Oh no, the nurse is cute. Oh no, I can't." - No, I think with needles, I feel needles are the only time where you can bring out your inner pussy and just be like, "I don't, I don't."

- I can't look at the needle going in. - I have to look at the needle going in. - What, you do? - Yeah. - It's on the contrary for me. If he's like, all right, we're gonna go in. And if I don't see it and I feel a prick, that scares me. - Joey's just like, he's like, it's going in. - Yeah, no, legit. I have to go hard mode, I'm just being like,

Do it now! - Wait, so what about staring at you being like pierced helps you? - Because I know when the pain is coming. - What? - You know what I mean? - That's worse. - No, no. - Because then you're expecting the pain, right? - No, no, what's worse for me is unexpected pain. Where I'm just like, I'm just chilling. - But suddenly it's like, ow! - You barely feel it if you don't look though.

- No, no, no. I feel it more if I don't. - What? - Because that's like, have you ever like cut yourself or have like an injury and you don't feel it all day. And then suddenly you look at it and you're like, wow, there's a cut. And then suddenly you start feeling it. That's me and needles. - Really? Because every time I get cut,

it's just like immediate pain. - I can't imagine seeing blood literally gush out of my veins and thinking, yeah, that looks like a painless experience. - Not gonna lie, like during the summer, for instance, 'cause like during the summer your blood pressure is a lot higher. So when the blood comes out, it kind of just like gushes out and I'm just like, oh, that looks sick.

- I like looking at that, it's kind of cool. - I missed, I remember I was like, "Whoa, that's coming out of my body, fuck." - I remember when I was a kid, they would just give me this like contraption that was just like filled with like paint oil and it would just like, all of it would like, you would flip it over and it'd start playing like crazy. - Yeah. - You should do that to distract. - To distract yourself? - Yeah, 'cause I was like, "Wow, look at that thing go." - I just looked at the vial, I'm like, "Whoa, that's cool." - That's weird, I can't do that. - Really? - I was just like, I put my hand on the table, I'm like, "Go ahead." - You smacked it off? - I was like, "Kawaii" in there. - Go ahead.

- Why'd you have to like smack it up? - I'm like, come on, get ready boy. - Belt in the mouth. - I'm like, you using mine or we using mine? - What was weird for me because normally when I get my blood taken, I'm used to it being like a private place. You know what I mean? - It was in front of everyone.

- Yeah, and so we had our blood taken like a conveyor belt. And I was just like eyeing up the next guy, the guy next to me getting his blood taken. - Yeah, there was three of us right next to each other getting our blood taken. It was very odd. - And neither of us could look at the blood getting taken. And we just fucking like met eyes and just like,

- And then we kissed. - Yeah, it's like meeting guys in a urinal. It's just like, "Sir, this is awkward. "How's your day going? "Oh, you look like an O-type there." - Fuck you, mate. What are you meant to say, right? - Just trying to strike up any conversation. - I guess it is odd that we kind of made it into a private thing in the West, right? Like, does it really need to be private getting your blood taken? - I mean, it doesn't, but I feel more comfortable. - I think it's that people would prefer

- I prefer it, but if that means that I get medical tests way fucking quicker in the UK, by all means do my colonoscopy in front of the other patients. I do not mind. Let's get this done. - It's like, oh, you cracked the fat too? Same. High five. - If that means I can get it done 20% faster and I can get on with my day, gladly I'll get my blood. If I faint in front of a group of 20 people, who cares? - That's why in my head I was like, oh, this is gonna be an all day thing.

- I thought it was gonna be an all day thing. - Because the health check up anywhere else is definitely an all day thing, right? - Yeah, I think the worst part was that you couldn't eat or drink anything the night before. - Oh really? - After like 8:00 PM, you have to stop eating and drinking. And normally that wouldn't be a problem. But when you tell me I can't eat and drink, I'm like, well, fuck, now I want to. Now I wanna just eat. - Wait, you can't even drink water? - Oh, you can drink water. - I was gonna say. - You can drink, but water's the only thing you can drink. You can't have any alcohol. - I was like, British people like shaking tea, tea.

- Yeah, basically no substance like in your bloodstream. - Why is there substance? What are you taking? God's like fuck. - You gotta put the belt and spoon away. - God damn it. - God damn it, they're gonna see my heroin veins and everything, man.

- Make sure to hit the heroin vein. - Don't worry, I got this. I've done this before. I'm kidding. - This is a joke. - How do you take heroin again? You take a pint of heroin? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That's how you take it, right? - It's a pint, definitely. - Can't believe the Trash Taste Boys make light of drug addicts. How dare they? - Yeah, well.

- In case you don't get sarcasm, none of us have done heroin. Okay, so I just wanna make that clear. - Yet. - Yet, unless. - That's the dark arc of the trash talk.

- Trailer trash taste. - We should stop joking about this. Oh my God. - I heard you guys had an exciting taxi journey. - Yeah, so I convinced Joey to get a taxi 'cause Joey wanted to get the train home 'cause it's about like half the price. But you know, it was like midnight. - It was the day where Connor and I were streaming at the trash taste office, if you guys saw on our Twitch. But it was like 11:00 PM when we finished. - Yeah, and I was like, fuck getting the train home. Come on, Joey, let's get a taxi. Let's be comfortable. You know, it's late. - I don't know what you see.

I don't know why you have this massive thing about like the comfort in taxi. It's not that much more comfortable. - It's not comfortable. - It's so much more comfortable. - You say it as if it's like business class versus economy class. - Honestly, that's the way I see it. - No, no. - Because also right now with the Rona going on, if I can avoid getting a train, I'll avoid getting a train. - I understand that. But for me, like I would,

most like 90% of the time, I would rather get like have a longer journey that I can actually do stuff on because I can't do anything on a taxi. - I can do more on a taxi. - I look at my phone and I immediately just get carsick. - You can't do anything on a train in Japan. - Yeah, I mean, you can watch YouTube videos. - Yeah, you can do that in a taxi. - No, no, I can't because I get carsick. - Because I don't know why. - I'm sorry that your natural selection

- I didn't favor you, Joey. That's not my problem. - I'm not the only one gone. - I think most people get carsick. - I'm focusing on the YouTube video of the thing. - It's because you can't see outside. So the inertia just fucks you up. - Yeah, because- - That's how you get carsick. - I'm not sure about the exact signs of car sickness, but cars are the only vehicle I get motion sickness in. Anything else I can like read, I can- - Both.

- Boats, I- - Well that's not car sick, is it? It's seasick. - She said vehicle. - I don't think I get seasick. - Really? I get seasick sometimes. - I get slightly seasick. - 'Cause normally people who are car sick get seasick. - I don't get car sick that easily though. - Unless you're watching something. - But if I'm looking down at my phone or like I can't read in a car. - I don't get car sick if I'm just sitting there. - God, car sickness must be hell then. - Yeah, it's fine.

- Yeah, it's fucking boring for me. - You have to shovel like four hours in a car. What do you do? - God, I fucking hate my life. - You just turn on some music and go to bed. - Yeah, that's why I think that's why I've conditioned myself to be able to sleep so easily in cars because I literally can't do anything in cars but sleep and listen to music. - I can do the exact same thing on a bus and not get sick.

- On a bus? - Yeah, I could be on a bus and watch YouTube or whatever or read and I'd be fine. - Fucking look at the needles to do this shit. What happened to you? - But if I do that in a car, five minutes in, I'm sick. - I think it's the smaller the vehicle, the more likely I'm to get sick. I don't know what the science is behind that, but if it's like a small taxi, especially if it's a small taxi and we're like squeezed in, then I- - And if you're in the backseat, right? - And if you're in the backseat, I just get immediately- - I don't wanna be in front of the taxi.

I don't wanna make eye contact with the taxi driver. - You don't have to. What, you think you're just gonna fucking do this the entire ride? - Well, sometimes, you know, you might find yourself wandering and you look at him and it's this awkward moment of like, hi, how you doing? - No, I never- - Good driving, good driving. - What are you like? I'm awkward, I don't wanna make eye contact with him. - I have the same problem in the backseat where I accidentally sometimes look at the- - No, that's the worst. - I sometimes look at the rear view mirror and then I make eyes at them and then just like, hi there.

- The worst is when they're a fucking awful driver as well. You gotta pretend like they're doing this good job. And they're just fucking insane. - And that's why I prefer to be in the front. 'Cause I'm less likely to get sick in the front from shit driving than in the back. 'Cause you're fucking thrown around in the back. Anyway, the story. - Yeah, we were talking about the fucking story. - Okay, we'll go back into taxi. - Yeah, yeah. So anyway, so Connor was like, look,

Look, it's 20 minutes home on a comfy taxi. - It's quicker. - It's quicker by only like five, 10 minutes. - We get closer to our house 'cause we don't have to go to the station and walk, right? Not that much. - Yeah, so I was like, all right, fucking I'll humor your taxi ride. So then we get in the taxi, taxi's driving fine. And then we go onto this like kind of bridge thing.

And then just some random police officer just walks out onto the street and kind of flags us down. - Right. - And tells us to go into one of the roads. And immediately the taxi driver was like, does the Japanese equivalent of, oh fuck. - He's like this 90 year old dude just being like, oh shit. And he pulls in and Connor and I are like, what the fuck's going on? And I asked the taxi driver, I'm like, is something wrong? And he's like,

- I was speeding. I was like, "You got stopped for speeding?" And he's like, "Yeah, I was doing 80 down to 60." And this fucking old dude just like walks out of the taxi, fucking like, you know, Ozzy Osbourne style, just like kind of stumbles out. - Four policemen surround this poor old man. - Yeah, and like in the middle of the night, he's filling out this paper for work and Connor and I just kind of sitting there being like, "Well, we could have been home by now "if we weren't on the train, huh?"

- The one time I human this man to get on a taxi. - Listen, that was the first time I've ever had a taxi driver been pulled over by the police. 'Cause I was like, I was just hoping that they wouldn't be like, all right, let's have a look what these boys in the back look pretty foreign. Let's see what's going on with these boys. That's why I was like, fuck.

- Yeah, no, I was afraid that might happen as well. So immediately, like before the police officer even started talking to us, I just immediately bust out the Japanese being like, "What's going on officer?" "Yes, I am Japanese." - Also, the police officers asked us, they were like, "Is it okay if we stop you for now?" Like the driver. - Yeah, and I was like,

What if we said no? - Yeah, I'm like, what are you supposed to say to that? - We're in the middle of fucking nowhere. There's no taxis anywhere. What do you expect us to do? Like Walmart? - They pulled us over some bridge. So there wasn't like much there. So it was just like some water. And like a bunch of like a power plant nearby. So it was like nothing. It was really odd. - So four police officers,

fucking bust down this decrepit taxi driver. - Yeah, just for this guy. And then there's two other police officers just standing there doing nothing 'cause that's what they do here. - Every police story I've heard in Japan is all about how many police officers you need versus how many was actually needed. - They literally sent like six police officers to like, you know, someone falling over on a bike. It's like, it's insane. They're so bored here. They have nothing to do.

- Or they need spotters, right? - I got you bro, nice policing you're doing there. - Yeah, 'cause normally in the UK, it's always like two people. Like it's always a squad of two people. - Yeah, exactly. You got one and your partner, right? - Yeah, it's normally how it should be, right? Because also, I don't know if this is on purpose, but it's very intimidating when four or five policemen are crowding around you and you haven't done anything. And they're asking you questions, they all look pissed off. And I'm like, well, come on.

- What's going on here then? - Yeah, right? - That's all this is about. - I felt so bad for the old dude 'cause he looked like he was about to get fucking beaten up.

but he's a police officer. 'Cause they literally just crowding around him, just like looking down at the paperwork. - I've never been in this situation as well. This is the first time where I've been near police where they haven't asked for like my ID and like information and stuff. - Yeah, because I busted out the Japanese. - It's so annoying 'cause you just go near them. They're like, "Hey, can we see ID and all this?" And I'm like, "Why? I'm not involved in this. I'm literally just a customer. Leave me alone." - What, you think I had a gun pointing to this? - Yeah, do it, do it, do it, do it. You sick cunt.

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Weldon reinventing men's basic. Don't steal this line from me. - Thank you to Mack Weldon for sponsoring this episode. Back to the show. - But in general, I do find taxis a little,

I don't know, awkward, I don't know. As somebody again who thinks about things a lot socially, I like to think of like the perfect social situations. - What's awkward about them? - Yeah. - Well, I don't know. Okay, well actually- - I mean you talk so highly of taxis, right? - In Japan it's good because I know they'll, actually some of them do actually try and talk to me. I was about to say none of them ever talk to me, but some of them will. - I feel some of the older ones, they bust out a conversation. - Yeah, some of them are people who also like maybe learned English in college or something. - Especially I've noticed taxi drivers in the countryside

- To me. - Oh yeah, they love to talk to you. - They love talking. In the city, it's just like, all right, you're a customer, I'm a taxi driver, I will not communicate in any way, shape or form. - It's charming in Japan, I think, when the taxi drivers try and talk to you. Especially in English, when they try and talk to you, it's like, oh damn, you were putting on the work, so please focus on driving, but go ahead. - The best taxi driver I ever had was in Okinawa.

- And we were going from- - What constitutes a good taxi driver? - Yeah, that's a good question. - Okay, it was a good taxi driver. - Do you like it when your taxi drivers talk to you? - Sometimes, I gotta be in the right mood. - Yeah, yeah, same here. - Like sometimes I'm just so fucked, like, you know, if it's like fucking 3:00 AM, right? And I'm like either drunk or just tired or both and I'm stepping in, I don't want to have a fucking conversation with the taxi driver. - Yeah, yeah. Sometimes you get in a taxi driver and they ask how your day's going and I'm just like-

I was just like, can you not tell by the way I look? - Here we go. - I mean, it depends if I'm alone or with friends. Have you ever had a taxi driver who bought into a conversation between you and friends? - Oh yeah. - I hate that. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Hold on, hold on. This isn't a social invitation, sir. - No, but the best taxi ride I had was in Okinawa because we were going from our hotel to this like one castle in Naha. And it was like a 30 minute taxi ride. And the dude was like, you know, obviously an older gentleman, but he clearly had been there his entire life. And he knew immediately, he was like, "Oh, foreigners."

You clearly don't know a whole lot about this place, huh? And he started talking and he took us on this really fucking scenic route throughout all these places. But he said, he's like, "I took you on the scenic route, but I'll charge you for the regular route."

- Oh, so he was nice enough. So he would like actually like kind of stop the car and kind of be like, this is this and you know, - Man's a tour guide. - He was like a tour guide. - I actually had something very similar happen to me when I went to Koshy Valley. Cause we wanted to go to this one- - Taxi drivers just part-time like fucking tourists. - I think they're just happy because they just have one, they're happy to have tourists there because I'm pretty sure business has not been banging this year. So yeah, we, me and Sydney was on his taxi drive on his taxi ride to get to this winery. And he's like,

"Let me give you a tour of the other wineries "in the area as well, just in case you wanna go." - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - "You wanna go to any?" Yeah, he only charged us for the taxi rides to the one winery, but yeah, we got a tour of like every winery down there. - Show me these taxi drivers, I'm never getting these. - I mean, again, like I feel taxi drivers like that though really only exist in the countryside. - Yeah, you don't really get that in Tokyo. Dude, in Tokyo, they're fucking miserable. - Yeah, I would be too, to be honest. - I also, what's the, oh, it's in Roppongi, there's a big cemetery.

I'll find it for you. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I forgot the name of it. - It's giant. I'll send you a picture of Mudan. But there's this whole area right next to this giant cemetery, right? There's a big stretch of road. And taxi drivers just sleep there.

- Really? - There's hundreds of taxis parked, right? And they all park and they all just sleep and like change clothes in this area. It's on a busy road in a really busy area. They all just sleep there. It's so bizarre. Yeah, you can do that here. You can just park your car on a busy road and just sleep. Like people do that. It's so weird. You can't do that in the UK.

- No, I feel most countries you can't do that. - No, even in the countryside that'd be weird. Someone would like come and stop you and be like, "Yo, are you okay? What's up?" - Have you by the way seen, I couldn't fucking believe this, but have you seen those like rare taxis that you can get in Tokyo? - Rare taxis? - I can't believe Japan has actually done this, but they've literally turned taxis into gacha.

- Of course they have, of course they have. - I forgot the exact name of it, but I think it's called like Sakura taxis. So you know how like in most taxis in Tokyo, and this is only a Tokyo thing, but like, you know how on taxis, like they usually have like the signs on top of the car that like show, you know, whether the taxi's open or whatnot. Apparently out of, I think like the 7,400 taxi cars in the greater Tokyo area, there are five taxis

that have like a Sakura thing on top of it. And supposedly that's like the SSR of taxis. And it's like- - What'd you get? - No, because one of my friends actually got it the other day. And when you enter into the taxi, it's locked.

and like actually like first class of taxis. And inside there's like a little sheet of paper that says, congratulations, you found one of five ultra rare taxis. - Fuck, I hate that. I think that's so fucking cool. - Yeah, I think that's so fucking cool. And I'm just like, I really wanna kind of go around now trying to find this fucking movie

- This is a mythical taxi, this SSR taxi. - Dude, my fucking gacha pool. It's the gacha pool of taxis now. - Garnt's like fluffing already. He's like, oh my God. - It's like every time you use like Tokyo taxi app, you're just like, come on, give me the SSR, give me the SSR. - What is this, like a 0.01 boy or something like that?

- Fuck it, I'll give it a go, why not? All right, Connor, let's get more taxis. - God's just calling taxi after taxi into his house and they're all just parked up. - Are you the rare taxi? No, don't worry, I don't need a taxi. - It's like, oh fuck, it's blue bag, blue bag. He's like, come on, give me the gold bag, give me the gold bag. - Well, I just think that's so fucking cool that like, that's just like one extra, I guess, like piece of enjoyment you can have as a tourist, right? Like knowing that now when you come to Japan and you go on a taxi, like you can look forward to that being like,

finna pull the SSRs on taxis. - It's the one reason that the tourists used to use a taxi because God damn they're expensive in Japan. - Oh, in Tokyo, dude, they're fucking expensive. - They get pissed off if you take a short journey as well. - Yeah. - Yeah. - And I've taken, sometimes I've had like too much shit to carry. So I've had to get like, it's like a short walk from the station to my house. But I remember like a few times when I've gotten the taxi because I had like too much stuff to carry. They were like, "Oh, there?"

- Oh here? - Yeah, yeah. And then I say like, thank you when I leave and they don't say it back. And I'm like, wow, okay. In Japan, that's like the biggest fuck you. Didn't say thank you back, the audacity. - That's like the equivalent of flipping the book. - Yeah, literally. I didn't realize that until someone pointed it out that it happened another time as well. They were like, wow, that was really rude. I'm like, was he?

I thought he was just driving. - Well, he didn't say thank you back. What a fucking asshole. - The first time it happened was a similar situation where it was like a very short journey. It was like an $8 journey, not even, right? And then I got out and the other person with him was like, "Wow, that was so rude." And I'm like, "What was rude?" He just drove us. He didn't say anything. He's like, "Yeah, I said thank you. "You didn't say it back." I'm like, "Oh, okay." - The audacity of this bitch. - I'm like, "I'm afraid to get back in that car "and give him a slap."

- No, but like, that's the thing. It's like, it's just Tokyo taxis that are just so fucking expensive because like, if you think about it, catching a taxi in Tokyo is a luxury because trains are just so fucking convenient in Tokyo. Whereas the moment you're out of the greater Tokyo area, a lot of places without a taxi, you're fucked. - I think it depends where you're going. 'Cause there's some, if you're on the outskirts of Tokyo, sometimes going, if you're going in like a,

like I don't know, quarter circle, let's say. They don't really have trains that go, like London, right? It's the exact same where trains go in and out.

and they don't go around normally. - Right, right. - So if you wanna go to the outskirts, most of the time to get like just a 15 minute taxi drive away, it might require you to go in all the way to Central and then go out. - Yeah, yeah, that's true. - It's like 50 minutes. And it's like, well, how much is 45 minutes of my time worth or 30 minutes? - Right, but I think like the majority of people just don't really care about that. - Central Tokyo, you have no excuse. - Yeah, yeah, if you're like going to Shinjuku or Shibuya. - Whereas in Okinawa, there's literally one tram line that goes for five stops.

And that's the only train line that they have on the entire island. So that's why the taxis are like half the price that you get in Tokyo. - Yeah, if the people rely on it, the local government will- - Yeah, like the 30 minute taxi ride in Okinawa I was talking about was like 2000 yen. - Oh shit, seriously. - Yeah, it was really, really cheap. - 'Cause in Tokyo, that would be about like 60, 70 bucks. - I'm convinced, right, that in Tokyo, they don't make people retire. They make them become taxi drivers.

- Most taxi drivers, when I see a young taxi driver, I'm like, wow, you've made a career choice. - Something's up. - You made a bold career choice here. What's going on? - Because I speak to people and they like, I swear to God, they look at taxi drivers like McDonald's workers here. - Do they? - Yeah, because it's like, you don't need any qualifications except drive, which they expect you to do. And it's just like a throwaway job that they make or GSUNs do.

- Yeah, yeah, basically. I think the average age of a taxi driver here is like 70. - It's like you can retire or you, in Japan, you either see yourself retire or become a taxi driver. - It's either taxi driver or like a construction worker, but not actually doing construction. Just like holding the signs and being like, "This way, please." - It's nuts how fast they build houses here. It's like crazy. - Yeah, we had like a whole school be built right next to the apartment I'm living in, in the span of the year I was living here. - Jesus.

- They built a full like three story house next to me in like two months. I was like, what the fuck?

- What the fuck? This ain't right. - No, it is crazy. Like, especially like say when you go into like the city or whatever and you haven't been for maybe like a couple of months, it's surprising the amount of things that have changed. Like, oh, this building was completely different two months ago. Now it's just magically here. - Going back to taxi drivers though, have you ever had any weird or like bad taxi experiences worldwide? - Oh yeah, definitely in Europe. I've had some pretty shitty taxis. - Wait, where in Europe? - France.

- Oh. - Taxi and Uber. - The worst Uber ride I ever had was in France. - 'Cause I don't know why all the weird taxi experiences I've had have been in LA. - Really? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've only had like- - Like taxis or Ubers? - Ubers. - Ubers, right? - I like when they talk to you in LA, it's nice. - No, Ubers in LA, I've always had like a pleasant time.

- It's weird because I've, for like the most part, I've had very pleasant experiences with Uber in LA. But there's this one, there's sometimes I get a really odd experience and it's, okay, so the oddest experience I've ever had with an Uber in LA, it was during AX time.

And we were, all we would, it was me and two other friends. And all we were doing was we wanted to take a taxi to the convention hall. And this was late at night, by the way. So it was, it wasn't like the daytime. It was like, let's say 7, 8 PM. So it was kind of nighttime. The sun was down. So we get, we call this Uber. And this like, this car just rocks up. And it's like a fucking decrepit, broken.

- I was just like, how the fuck has this passed like Uber standards? I'm pretty sure that like a dead body had been there at one point. You know what I mean? So we were like, oh,

- This is the Uber. Oh, okay. So we were like, whatever. It's like a five, 10 minute journey anyway. It doesn't really matter that much. So we're getting this taxi driver and immediately he opens his mouth and you can kind of feel that he's not all there in the head. Yeah, he has a screw loose, right? - Right. - Why, what was he saying? - So at the beginning he was talking about

- Guys, I gotta ask you a favor. Can you please give me five stars for my journey? All I'm asking for is one five star. I just want a five star, okay? I just keep getting one stars and I don't know why.

- I don't know why. I don't know why. - He's like the one light kid. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - He's like, "We did it guys." - And then I'm like, "Okay, that's an aggressive way to ask for a positive review, but sure, sure." - That is not how you get five stars. - "Sure, we'll give you a five star." So he starts driving to this convention hall, right? - Yeah.

He puts it in the GPS, we go to the LA Convention Center and then it says to go on a turning, right? And then it says, "Please turn right." Doesn't listen, he goes forward, right? And then he goes, and then so it's fine. The GPS corrects itself and goes, "Please turn right at the next turning." Ignores that one, keeps going forward. And in between him ignoring this GPS and,

- Getting further and further away from the convention center I might ask, 'cause I was like on Google Maps, 'cause I was like, "What the fuck is this taxi driver doing?" And he goes and he keeps talking about this fucking five star and one star rant, right? And he goes, "If I get another bad review,

I'm gonna lose it, man. I'm gonna lose it. - You're like hovering the one star. - He keeps saying that and I'm just like making eyes 'cause I'm sitting in the front and my teammates sitting in the back and I'm just trying to make eyes to be like- - Oh, you're in the passenger seat? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm just like-

if he pulls the gun, like you got my back, right? Like if something happens, you got my back. And so the third time the GPS tells to turn right and he misses it again. And I'm just like, shit man, something's gone wrong. We need to get out of this taxi right now. I'd rather get another Uber than get further and further away from safety, which is the convention center and stay one second longer in this taxi. So we're like,

"Don't worry, man, we're close enough to the convention center. We can just stop here. We can just stop here." And he goes, "Are you sure? You sure?" And so we're just like, "Yeah, yeah, please, please stop. Please just stop here." - I beg of you. - And so we get out of the taxi and as I'm getting out, he leans over and he goes, "You're gonna give me your five star, right?" And we go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Five star, five star, five star.

You promise five star, yeah, five star. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, don't worry. We'll give you a five star. All right, looking forward to that five star. Drives off, instant one star. - I was gonna say, I hope you give me a one star. - I hope it was a one star. - 'Cause people are like, I don't care how nice you are, you shouldn't fucking be an Uber driver if you're pulling shit like that. - That's the equivalent of like getting a pizza delivered and the guy being like, $20 tip, right? You gotta give me at least a $20 tip. $10, no, no, no, 20.

But I could very much see during that experience why people gave him one stars because I mean, I kind of feared for my safety at one point during that taxi ride. - I mean, it's like, it's not even a matter of him just like ranting about like, I'm gonna kill a bitch if I get another one star. It's the fact that he wasn't even going the right way. - He wasn't going the right way. And like, I was like, okay. At the beginning when he asked for the five stars, I was like, whatever, it's a fucking review. I don't give a shit. But when he was like,

"I'm gonna lose it, man. I'm gonna lose it." I was just like, "Oh shit, man." - That's fucking terrifying. Especially LA, you don't know what the fuck's gonna happen. - Yeah, exactly. - Oh, that's pretty scary, isn't it? - Yeah. I've never had anything like that. - Yeah, I sadly haven't had any crazy taxi journeys really. Most of them are pretty chill. I don't know. I feel like it's really hard to have a bad taxi journey. Although someone gave me a one star once as a customer on Uber and I was confused 'cause- - Really? - I don't think I've ever done anything in a car, but maybe I did something that like ruined this man's day and he gave me a one star. - Oh wow.

I had one like really memorable Uber ride in LA. And it was again from where we were staying to the convention center. It was like, again, another like five, 10 minute ride. And this massive Jeep rocks off. There's only two of us. I'm like, okay, that's a bit overkill, but whatever. Jump in and it's just this like the biggest black dude I've ever seen. Like this guy, like not like fat like built,

Like this guy's fucking pretty shit house. All right. And he's just like, Hey, you Jory, right? I'm like, yep. And it's like LA convention center. All right. I got you. Like, you know, like super chill. Right. Yeah. And, and so the car drives off like two minutes later, he's like, Hey, you mind if I put on some music? I'm like, yeah, man, whatever you want. Yeah. Yeah.

- Yeah. - Yeah, it's like, yeah man, whatever you want, it's all good. And he's like, all right, cool. He turns on something, right? And you know, there's a million different artists you can envision a person like that might listen to, right? It was like, oh yeah, it's like, you know, it could be any fucking like hardcore hip hop, whatever, right? Whatever the dude into. Fucking Enya comes on. - Hell yeah. - He's just like, ♪ Who can say ♪

- You just have a fucking Terry Crews moment and you're like white chicks. - And I'm just like, I just started laughing. Like I couldn't help, I'm like, if I laugh, this man might kill me, but this is just too funny. And I'm like, you like it in your home? He's like, yeah, it helps me to relax. - Dude, that's fucking amazing, man. - Yeah, it was fucking great. - Full on respect to the dude. - Yeah, it was so cool. That's the thing though, I didn't know if he was like trying to make me laugh or he was actually being serious, but either way I was like,

"You know what, I can get into this. "This is really cool." Props to you, man. You might be a brick shit ass, but you listen to some Enya, whatever, man. - I'd love to be an Uber driver and just troll people with music. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. - I would as well. - And if I put my favorite music on, just plays like. - Like a star opening. - No, if I get an Uber driver, if I become an Uber driver, anime OPs only, man. - Yeah, yeah. - Anime OPs only. - As I was hearing your story, I was like, "Have I ever given an Uber driver a one star?" I don't think so. 'Cause to me- - That was my only one star. - To me, it's like five star is like,

it encompasses everything from the best experience to my life to you got me there in one piece. - Yeah, right. - Four star is like, you shit literally broke down, you shit yourself, the car stinks, you've killed someone, you hit a dog as well. All right, four stars. - Yeah. - And then I've just never used a one star, I didn't even know it was an option. I thought there was just two. - There's zero stars as well, right, that you can give.

- Is that? - Yeah, I think so. - I don't know. - What does someone have to do to get zero star? - I mean, like the one, the worst Uber ride that me and Aki went on was in France, in Paris. And this dude like- - You could Uber in France? - Yeah. And this man almost actually got us into a car accident. - Yo, French drivers are nuts, dude. - Yeah. - I remember- - He was fucking shouting at everybody and like the shittiest, like the kind of like start stop kind of driving where I'm just like, bro, I'm gonna be fucking sick all over this car.

And he got us there and he was like, "Okay, okay, we're here for whatever." I'm just like, "All right, man, zero stars." - Didn't you get scammed in like Italy, right?

- Yeah, almost. - 'Cause like in like Italy and a lot of European countries, except for like, I don't know, Germany is pretty good for it. I mean, a lot of the, like, I think like Prague is really bad for it and places like that where like the taxi drivers mad scam you. And you gotta be like, it sucks 'cause it's the most un-Japanese thing ever, but you just gotta be like, no, I'm not paying that. Give me an actual fare. Like this is ridiculous. - Yeah, so we landed in Rome airport

and there was just a dude outside of the gate, just being like, "Taxi, taxi." - So they know you're tourists. - Yeah, 'cause they know we're tourists, right? And we were with Aki's parents as well. So Aki's dad was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure." 'Cause he's an Uber driver. And he's like, "How much to this hotel?" And he looks and he goes, "Oh, 50, 50 Euro." And we're like, "All right, whatever." So then he takes us to like the back of the airport where like, it's like right opposite where the hangar is. And there's just this van.

And we get into this van and he's like, "Okay, hold on, I call my driver." And the guy fucks off and we're left in this van. And the longer we look around this van, we were like, "We gotta get the fuck out of this van, dude. "This is not a taxi." Because then I looked up like,

you know, standard Italian like taxi fares to the airport from the hotel. And we're like a normal like taxi ride is like 20 euros. And this dude's charging 50. We're like, we're gonna get the fuck out. - Don't fucking listen to those in Europe, man. Like they'll try and get you away. 'Cause it's always gonna be like an official taxi stand. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - You should always go to. - So we immediately, we didn't even wait for them. We just like grabbed our shit, got out, went to the regular taxi stand and we're like, all right, thank God.

- I mean, I'm pretty sure for like any country you wanna go to the official taxi stands. - Well, some countries have way stricter rules on taxis than others. And like, even if you get one somewhere random, you're pretty, yes, a lot of countries you'll still get like, I mean, Japan, you get it anywhere. You're gonna get the standard fare. Same in like Germany and UK as well, I'm pretty sure as well, something.

- Yeah, we learned our lesson that we're about to get, I don't know where the fuck this guy was gonna take us. - Probably got in someone's van. - Literally what they warn against as you're a fucking kid. - Don't get in any van ever. - It was such as fuck. - But I think like the craziest in terms of driving taxi drivers I've had,

probably in China. I remember there was this one taxi journey I had in China where it was literally like I was in a crazy taxi game. You know what I mean? Like this guy, this guy was full on fucking, he might as well have just been like drifting initial D star, right? And it was like, he was in the middle of fucking Shanghai and whenever there would be like pedestrians on the road, he wouldn't slow down. He was like tapping his horn like it was a fucking quick time event. You know what I mean?

- That's how like, he literally had one hand on the steering wheel and one in the other hand on the horn. 'Cause that's how often he was tapping it, man. I had never like feared my life. - You go to Chinese driving school and they're like, "Right, so roll the window down, please. So you get rid of the shadow people. Make sure your hand is always on the middle. Steering is optional." - Jesus Christ. - Oh my God, man. - I mean, you told us about the story before about the situation that was not my Penrose.

- I've just had weird taxi jobs. - You have, yeah. - It's just Asia seems to have some weird fucking taxi. - That's just Asia and driving rules in general. - Oh yeah, that's true. - Which is why, like you were talking about bad taxi experiences in Japan. For like, I don't think I've had even like a bad one

bad mediocre experience in Japan. Everything has just got the job done. - If anything, the best taxi rides I've had have been in like countryside Japan. - In Japan, right? Everything's metered. You don't have to worry about tipping or anything like that. I mean, sometimes Japan has been the only country where I wish tipping culture was a thing. Because I wanted to tip that taxi driver who took me on a tour of different wineries without asking and stuff like that. I'm like, please give, like, let me give you extra money.

- Yeah, we were all fully prepared to like pay the extra because he was taking us around the scenic route and he's like, "No, no, no, no, it's okay. "Stand the price." I'm just like, "Bro, come on." - I want you to go home tonight and treat yourself. - Yeah, exactly. - Get something nice. - Exactly. Speaking of like giving like five stars and one stars and stuff like that, have we ever talked about what like the reviewing mentality is here in Japan?

- Oh, I noticed that right away when I moved here. How like nothing on Amazon is above four stars. - It's not just not on Amazon, like everything on like Google reviews and stuffing, if like hardly anything is above four stars. It's like mostly- - And if it is, then it's only like two reviews, right? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And also like they have a, so they do use Google reviews mainly for like restaurants and stuff, but there's also a thing called Tabalog,

that a lot of people who think they're food critics use. - It's like the Yelp of Japan basically. - It's insane 'cause it's like these people review these food restaurants and like three stars for a restaurant is considered good. That's like, it's done it. It's impressive. - Because I remember when I first moved to Japan and whenever you look up restaurants on Google,

you see like three, 3.5 stars, maybe the occasional four. And in England or in America, when I see a three-star restaurant, I'm like, yo, something's gone wrong. - If it's below a four, then I'm just like something's wrong. - Someone found a rat in their food or something, man. Like, I don't know. - I don't understand. Yeah, I don't understand what that is. Like, do the Japanese think that the stars on Google reviews like Michelin stars? - I mean, I understand it because they actually,

I respect that they have a mentality where they literally actually use every star in the review system. 'Cause it's like the Mal review, right? Where anything below, like I'm pretty sure like- - Anything below seven is shit. - I'm pretty sure like Mal users don't realize that like under five stars actually exist. Because it's either like seven if it's good

- Six is really bad. - Six is really bad and like five is the most awful anime you've ever watched. - For like a restaurant, the way I imagine it is like, what would I tell the owner if he was right in front of me now? Would I genuinely sit there and be like, this is a three star experience? 'Cause you know what I mean? 'Cause how are you gonna do that to the poor guy? He should run a business, right? 'Cause to me, if I go somewhere, I really like the food, I have nothing bad about it,

how in good faith can I be like, yeah, you don't deserve five stars. - Yeah. - Because there was nothing wrong with it. Like this was exactly what I wanted. I got what I needed. Yeah, it wasn't fine dining. It wasn't crazy, but like there was nothing wrong. - Sorry, I was gonna say like, that's the thing I wanna ask about these like super harsh Japanese reviewers, right? It's like, what is a five star? - Yeah. - It's like, do you want a blow job from the chef? - This is also another thing where like, can you judge really a restaurant the same way McDonald's?

- Yeah, because what I was gonna say is even like the fine dining restaurants are the same star restaurants. And that's because they expect a fine dining experience. So if they get the fine dining experience, that's standard, you've done the job. And so that makes me wonder what the fuck would a fine dining restaurant have to do to get a four or five star man? - It blows my mind. 'Cause like I said, like comparing McDonald's to like a fine dining experience.

they really shouldn't be on the same scale, right? 'Cause they're totally different things. - Yeah. - So when you go to McDonald's, what are you judging about McDonald's? Are you judging the place, the food? What are you judging? 'Cause the food isn't gonna change really. It's probably not gonna be any different. - The only thing that determines a good McDonald's experience or a bad one is like how fast the food comes up. - Yeah, this is what I see on Google reviews. I'll see a two star McDonald's and I'll see a four star. And I'm like, what is the difference?

Like ultimately I cannot tell the difference. Yes, it might be dirtier or whatever. - I had three less fries than I ordered last time. - That's what confuses me because then I'm also like, okay, so if I rate this McDonald's a five star, what am I rating it a five star? Am I rating it on a five star because- - Compared to other McDonald's? - Compared to, you know- - A bigger question is who the fuck is rating McDonald's on Google?

- Who is that boy? - Who are you people? - Who is that boy? - It must be the, okay, not to be rude, but you know, people who are like, yes, it's my only fine dining experience. I will review every McDonald's I go to. - People who call McDonald's a restaurant, the same people who call motels hotels, you know?

- I've noticed that every single like really, really high rated place in Japan, like 4.5 or higher is normally like a disgusting wait time to get the food. - Yeah, right. - Because when you get to that star in Japan, I feel like you get like an almost like a,

a fandom, like a hype around you. - Yeah, a cult following. - Yeah, and then everyone starts telling everyone. - It's like, yo, yo, this has got 4.5 stars. - You gotta go there early, you gotta line up. And it's like, well, fuck, now I can't enjoy the place. They're gonna make a three day at events reservation. - Yeah, I noticed that as well, where Japan's restaurant culture, especially if something is like highly acclaimed, it all spreads via word of mouth. - The Japanese love lining up. I don't get that.

- As a British person, I can appreciate a good queue. - As a British person, I can appreciate a good queue as well, but not to a restaurant. - No, no. - You know what I mean? - I can't fucking stand queues, dude. - Yeah, if I wanna go to a good restaurant that's exclusive, please let me book it. Please, please. I don't want another Gacha system. I don't wanna line up. I want just to have a booking and a specific time I turn up.

Or you could be like us and try to book a table at Denny's and completely fail. - 'Cause we always eat Denny's before we record a podcast and we had like one of the guests over and we're like, oh shit, that's a lot of people. We might have to book a table at Denny's. So we were like, hey Maylene. - Which to give context, it's like trying to book a table at McDonald's. - So Maylene called up Denny's and was like, can we book a table for six?

And the guy came back and was like, "This is a Denny's. "Why are you trying to book a fucking table? "Just come to the restaurant, please." - Ma'am, this is Denny's. - Wasn't it like he called the manager or something? - Yeah. - He was like, "This is Denny's."

- We don't do reservations. - We don't do reservations, yeah. - This is the fucking Denny's. - It's so exclusive, you have to turn up on the day. - It's the most polite way you can just say, "It's the fucking Denny's, why are you calling me for cookies?" - Yeah, what the fuck's wrong with you? - But also even like going back to like normal reviews of products, like all the products are like that as well. And like if you see something that's 45 stars on Amazon with over like 20 reviews, you're like, "Damn, this must be like the shit." - Yeah. - Because like- - Or they're paying for those reviews.

- Yeah, yeah, true. 'Cause I remember when I was buying a, like going back last week, buying a bed, I could not find a bed over like three stars on Amazon. - No, I couldn't either. I remember that. - Like there was no bed that was above three stars. And I'm like, how many problems people having with beds? And I would go to the reviews to read what they were saying. And they were all saying that the build was too long.

And that was the problem. - That's just sounds like your problem bro. - I've had some of the most pedantic reviews on Japanese Amazon. - They get so iffy with it. - I've had like someone one-star product because the packaging was bad. - Oh yeah, that's a really common problem. - The product's completely fine. The packaging was a bit off, so they were like one star. - That's what drives me insane is that they almost always review the shit around what you're actually reviewing. - Yeah, like all the delivery man had a bad attitude, one star. - It's bullshit. Like if the package is a little beat up,

but the thing's totally fine. - Yeah. - Fantastic.

- I don't give a fuck. Like as long as I can use the thing I need, so what? Like this shouldn't be a blight on the company that sent me it. Like this is fucking absurd. I guess I remember, I brought it up to Chris as well 'cause I was confused and Chris was telling me that Ryotaro told him it's something like three is like what you expect and it is good. And then five is like above and beyond. So it has to go, to get five stars it has to be beyond exception, like beyond what you wanted. Whereas I think for me,

Five stars should be like, all right, this is what I paid for. You gave me exactly what I asked for. No problems. Five stars. I don't know.

- Weird, weird. I guess it's different cultures. - Standards of time. - Different culture. - How do you guys feel about seasonal products here in Japan? Because every country in the world has like seasonal products and stuff, but I feel- - I guess so, yeah. - To an extent. - It's just not as heavily advertised as- - But like Japan take it to the next level, whereas half the shelf sometimes I feel is like seasonal products. - Everything is seasonal. Everything is premium as well. - Man.

- I get it now. I remember they would talk about it in the animes. They were like, man. - In the animes. - They're like, you don't know the pain until your favorite item has been removed from the Konbini. And I feel that. - I feel that as well. - So many items that I just liked, for some reason, the items that I specifically liked would just randomly get removed from the Konbini. I'll be like, oh, it'll be back next week. - Not gonna lie, every time I walk into a Konbini and I see something is like new, I'm just like, oh.

- I grab one of those. - Yeah, I don't know, 'cause like- - I don't wanna try it. I wanna get attached. - Yeah, that's exactly how I feel now. - To be betrayed. - I feel like so many times living in Japan, I go to a company, I try out this new, like, oh, this like new product that's only available for spring 'cause it's like the spring special or the winter special products. Try it, absolutely love it. And then a few months later, it just disappears. I'm like, fuck man, I want it now. You've given me a craving and you've removed the craving. And now I'm gonna have to wait

- For it to maybe come back. - Yeah, for it to maybe come back. 'Cause it might not even come back. - I hate that when they like bring out like a new strong zero flavor. - Yeah. - I'm just like, man, this is way better than the standard flavors. Too bad it's only around for two weeks and I'll never see it again once it's gone. - Yeah, 'cause it's not just like items. Sometimes there's like menu items in like restaurants as well that are only available during certain seasons.

I mean, I feel the biggest problem with that is that the one thing in Japanese, like especially supermarkets and restaurants, they love to do that whole like seasonal premium shit is with fruits. - Oh God. We've gone out, we've ranted about fruits. - We've ranted about fruits. But like, I remember like I went to a, I don't remember if it was, no, it was a Royal host. I went to a Royal host and they were doing this like seasonal thing with grapes. - Right. - Like the green grapes, like the muskets. - Yeah.

I tried a few of them 'cause I like green grapes and I was like, oh, this is really nice. Went back the next week and it was gone. I'm like, fucking hell, this is really premium, isn't it? I swear it was only on the menu for like three days and it's just gone. - Yeah, I swear they take like limited time sales to like another level here because it feels like a lot of things are just very limited.

It's a limited edition something, it's limited edition product. - I mean, you know, one can argue that that's like very good marketing. - It is very good marketing, I guess. - Like people will look at something premium being like, well, I guess if I can only get it now, I should get it now. - It is kind of cool going into a place and just having stuff be new constantly. But then there is also that fact that like, yeah, I did really like this one thing and you took it away from me.

So I'm very sad. - It's like the same thing whenever you travel to a new prefecture or something and there's every pre, like we talked about before, every prefecture has a specialty and an item you can only get in that prefecture. - Every prefecture will tell you that this is the best rice in Japan. Every prefecture will tell you it's all the fucking same. - So like definitely living in Japan, I've tried,

more like I've gone out of my comfort zone with trying new products and new sweets and new foods and everything. But at the same time, I've just found more cravings that I can't get on a normal basis anymore because it's only available from a certain prefect. - Yeah, what was the fucking maple cakes that we bought from? - Manju. - Yeah, the Manju that we bought from like Hiroshima. - Oh yeah. - Those were so fucking good. - Yeah. - But the problem is you can

only buy them in fucking Hiroshima. So it's just like, cool. - I'm not really a sweet person, but then I like, yeah, we bought those and I ate one and I was like, fuck, I want to eat all of them. - I was really pissed off that I bought the tiny box. - Yeah, I only bought a tiny box.

- Could have gotten the pack of 24, but instead I got the pack of eight. - 'Cause you never know, sometimes you go, you try out this new thing, you're like, it's all right, it's mid, it's whatever, right? But sometimes you find that really amazing product and you're like, fuck. - But then on the contrary, isn't it amazing when you find that one regional thing that you think you're never gonna see in Tokyo and then just one random shop sells it?

- Yeah, truck yeah man. - Fuck yeah. Like I remember like in Tochigi for example, they have this thing called lemon milk, which I fucking love. And it's like, it was a regional specific thing for the longest time. And I was like, well fuck, I gotta make a trip up to Tochigi every time I want this. So I would always buy it in bulk when I would come back home. But of course it doesn't last, right? And then the craving comes back and I get fucking regressions of it.

But then I remember I walked into like a random company once and they were just selling it. And it was like fucking Eldorado. It was just like, the secret was here all along. Fucking bought all that shit and brought it back. And I was like, all right, put it on Google maps. This is the company that sells the lemon milk. - The Sapporo special,

What is it? What's it called again? - Sapporo beer. - No, no, no, no, no. It's what's the prefecture called? Hokkaido. - Hokkaido, yeah. - We forgot for a second there. Yeah, Hokkaido, the Sapporo beer tastes way better when they have like the Sapporo, actual Sapporo beer. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It tastes so good. I wanted to bring so much back, but it's heavy.

- Does it actually make a difference though? - I genuinely think it tastes much better. - Really? - Yeah. - It's weird. I think Sapporo in Japan tastes worse than I remember it tasting abroad. I don't know, it's weird. Maybe it's 'cause I have it way more often now, but when I had Sapporo,

on tap somewhere else. I was like, oh, this is so much better than the other beer that we have. - But I think it's because you're comparing it to other beers, right? Like I remember Asahi tasting infinitely better in Australia. - Yeah, now it tastes shit. - I don't know why. But now I'm more scared to go back to Australia and have the shit beer in Australia. I'm like, if I think Asahi is mid now, which used to be like God tier before, I don't want to drink a VB, right? Like I feel like I'm gonna throw up drinking that shit. - I can't imagine going back and going like drinking a cup

- Carling again. - Carling is like piss water in the UK. It's like one of the worst beers. And there'll be sports bars in Japan that are like, we're partnered with Carling.

- We sell Carling and Carlsberg here. - I've seen that before. - Or Budweiser. - Yeah, Budweiser. - Yeah, 'cause I've seen like special restaurants, they sell like this Thai beer called Singha beer. And it's like in Thailand, it's like the dirtiest, cheapest beer you can get. Like they don't even put it on tap. They put it in like a can.

- Oh, the tinnies are the fucking worst. - And in Japan, they're on a menu like 500 yen for a little can of Singer beer. Fresh from Thailand. - Yeah, it's like who is gonna go to Japan and be like, "Oh, we have exclusive Heineken in bottle. 700 yen please." It's like-

- No. - Yeah, yeah, Heineken in Amsterdam is fucking great. - Yeah, it's very good. - Heineken in Amsterdam is good. - Well, the beer at wherever it's brewed is the best. - Well, yeah. It's like, you know, I had a fucking, oh my God, I'm blanking here, the Irish one. - Guinness. - Yeah, Guinness. - Guinness in Ireland is like- - Guinness in Ireland is like- - Guinness in Ireland is just here different. - Yeah, it's fucking amazing. But then I had a Guinness here on tap. - Why would you do that?

- Because they were having it on tap. So I'm like, I was curious. I was like, all right, well, Guinness in Ireland is so good. - I do that every time as well. - Yeah, I was like, oh, they have Guinness on tap here in Japan. Let me see. - Why'd you do it just to get hurt all over again? - Because you hold out the hope, right? You hold out the hope of maybe this is the one. Maybe this is the place that can recreate. - It's like this pub might be the SSR pool. - Yeah, exactly. - It's like this might be the one. - Maybe this is the one. And every time I get disappointed. - It's never gonna be the one. It's never gonna be the one.

I was like, every time I see like Irish pub in Tokyo, I was like, is that the one? Is that the one place that I can go? - It's 'cause it's not even in Turkey, it's worldwide for me. And like every time I see a Guinness on tap, 'cause it has to be on tap, never that can ship. But like it has to be on tap 'cause I'm like, it's on tap. Maybe this is the one, maybe they figured out the secret.

- I'm still waiting. If anyone in the world has ever tasted the Guinness outside of Ireland that tastes as good as in Ireland. - They're delusional if they do, sir. - Please, please hit me up. - I need to know. I need to know where that is. - And I will literally travel to that fucking place to try it. - Why not just travel to Ireland, Garnt? - Yeah, I'll just go to Ireland at that point. - No, I'm curious. I'm curious to see if there's any place outside of Ireland. - It doesn't travel well, you know? That's the sad truth of it.

- It's like kangaroo as well. Like that shit does not travel. - I'm okay with that staying in Australia actually. - I had a kangaroo steak here in Japan at an Outback Steakhouse of all fucking places. Just 'cause I was curious. And I was like, man, this shit does not travel. I found that out on that day that kangaroo does not travel. - You know what's also bizarre? When I was in...

I was at a train station and it was like 11:00 AM. There's so many people drinking beer in the station. - Yeah. - Just like everyone, every kind of like, you know, a group you can imagine like young girls, old men, young men, they were all just chilling in the station, just drinking a Sapporo beer. And I'm like, this is weird. Everyone's just drinking beer at like 11:00 AM. What the fuck?

- Fuck. - Yeah. - In the train station. - Yeah. - Like they're like public waiting areas. It's so bizarre. - It's like that in Okinawa as well, but instead of beer, it's Awamori, which is essentially just really fucking strong. It's basically Okinawan vodka. That's the only way to describe it. - 'Cause I forget sometimes about the public drinking laws here, which you can drink publicly here because I feel like I didn't expect

to see so many people drinking in the daytime in Japan. Like I get surprised when I see an Izakaya open because I'm like, who the fuck is going to an Izakaya at like 12:00 AM? - Oh, you'll see them and they'll be drinking a bevy. - Yeah, exactly. - I never thought that the concept of like lunchtime beer was a thing here until I saw it for myself. I was like, wow, they're actually having lunchtime beer. - It's the people you don't expect 'cause it's always like the old people, right? The old retired people were just like, hey, let's just have a lunchtime beer.

- It's like 12:00 PM. - To be fair in the UK, that's all the old people do as well. If you ever go to Wetherspoons at like midday, you'll always see the same old people downing pints at like 12 and you're like, it's okay, they'll be asleep by four anyways, it doesn't matter.

- Speaking of like little seasonal and regional stuff that you can only get in Japan, has there been anything you've like any little products or anything you've missed from home or from any other country at all? That you like actively get a craving for? - You know I have Connor. - I know you have Connor.

- My parents shipped out pot noodles to me because I do like the ramen cup noodles they have here. - I die a little inside whenever I hear Connor say that. - Because, right? I'm not saying that the pot noodles in the UK, which will be on screen, are better than the ones in Japan. I don't think that. I think the Japanese ones are superior in every way. But there's something familiar and comforting about the other flavor. - It's the nostalgia, right? - And also it's very spicy, which-

Unfortunately, none of us- - That's hard to come by here. - Yeah, it's really spicy. It's good shit. I love it. And so my parents are Christmas

- Because you know, ever since you start making your own money, it's like, right, well, I buy everything I want for myself. So they're like, what can we get you? And I'm like, well, you can get me something I can't get myself. And not love, none of that. Send me pot noodles from the UK. And they're like, pot noodles? I'm like, yes, please send me pot noodles. So they did. It was amazing. - I always ask my parents to send me like a strawberry

- Australian sweets and stuff like that. - Tim Tams, perhaps? - No, you can get Tim Tams here. - They suck anyway. - What? You don't like Tim Tams? - They're overrated. Every Australian swears by them like it's like national pride or something. - It is national pride. - It's fucking awesome. - Just a biscuit. - Oh my God. - Get out of here. - I think biscuit is like the most underwhelming sweet.

- It's hard, it's never satisfying. - It is. - Soft cookies are way better than hard cookies as well. - Yeah. - What do you think, J? - I get that, I get that. But we also have like, wait, so do you guys consider Tim Tams to be hard cookies? - No, biscuits. - Biscuits. - Oh, hard biscuits, right? - Yeah, they're hard biscuits. - They're not soft biscuits? - What's the difference? - 'Cause that's a soft biscuit to us.

- What are you eating rocks for hard biscuits? - We have these things called Anzac cookies, which are literally rocks. - I don't wanna have to worry. - Kids break teeth trying to eat these. That's not a cookie. - If I have to worry about breaking my- - It is a cookie. - If I have to worry about breaking my goddamn teeth, it's not a fucking cookie.

- Anzac biscuits are fucking, like Australians watching this one know, Anzac biscuits are fucking awesome. - It just sounds like a health hazard. - It is a health hazard. - It's like chewing, it's like, dude, you can work out your jawline eating this fucking cookie. Like it's so tough. - We have these growing up. I still have these in the UK obviously, but they're called digestives. Did you like those? - Digestives? - Digestive biscuits. - Digestives they're called. - That is not appealing at all. - I realize that's not very fitting.

- They were awful, I never liked them. - What the fuck's a digestive biscuit? - It's just like the most plain biscuit you can get and it's got like a soft layer of chocolate covered on top. - And the chocolate is shit chocolate. And the biscuit is like just dry. - Like a milk biscuit or? - No, no, no, no, no. It's like a wheat biscuit. Yeah, that's what it looks like. - A wheat biscuit. Oh God, that doesn't look good at all.

- Because you're supposed to like dip it with tea and coffee and stuff like that. - But then sometimes you dip it in your hot tea and it falls apart and your fucking tea's ruined. - Yeah. - But you can do that with a Tim Tam as well. - I don't want to put any, but I didn't do that. - That's too much chocolate to put in the tea biscuit. There needs to be like a perfect chocolate ratio, chocolate to biscuit ratio. 'Cause Tim Tams like covered in chocolate, right? - Yeah, yeah. - If the chocolate starts melting on your fingers as you dip it in tea, that's like too much. - You've never done a Tim Tam stroll before?

- What the fuck is that? - You haven't got a flip-flop kangaroo? - Here's some Australian culture for you. All right, so you get a Tim Tam. So it's like, usually you do it with a cup of tea or a cup of coffee, whatever you prefer. You get a Tim Tam, you bite both ends off. - Right. - And then you use it as a straw to suck up your tea and coffee. And it's fucking awesome.

- Is this some down under joke? - When is something a culture? When is it just like stupid? - It's what we do. That's what some people do. I did it once and I was like, yeah, that's cool. I don't do it every time, but just a little thing you can do. Yeah, I don't know. We gotta find our own fun in Australia, right? There isn't a lot to do.

- Exactly, all right. But yeah, I don't like biscuits at all. - No, it's definitely the worst. I'm not really fond of cookies either. I think cookies are overrated. - Maybe it's just because UK cookies are just shit. - No, no, no, no. - No, it's not. - Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. - Come on. - The fucking store brand cookies are always shit. Fresh cookies out the oven when they're like, they need to be soft and chewy. I don't know, okay. My favorite cookies I can get are actually Subway cookies.

- Oh, okay, yeah, they're bomb. - Subway cookies are fucking great. - I get it, I get it. - They're bomb. - You like the ones where you can pull it, easily off. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I like that. - If it's not fresh out the oven, what I hate is if I bite on a cookie and it crunches. - Shit goes everywhere. - Yeah. - Crumbs annihilate the room. - If I have crumbs, then I'm like, this is a shit cookie. This is just a biscuit with extra steps.

You know what I mean? - It's the biscuit with attitude. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like my cookies to be gooey. I like it to be soft. Not gonna lie, I've never thought that deeply about biscuit in my life. - I have, but you have? - No, no, no, because you know, you grow up in the UK, you're watching American cartoons. And for some reason in American cartoons, cookies are like, I don't know, the thing that fueled the world for the kids generation. Cookies were what the Mayans used to barter and negotiate.

These kids shows made cookies to be like the godsend of like everything. So when I, you know, you grow up and you can start buying your own things. You're like, well, I mean, cookies are the best treat. And you start having them. You're like, wait, these are kind of shit. - It was always like, you know, that mythical cookie jar, right?

- I didn't have it in my house, so I assume everybody else has one. - It was just like cookies were like insanely valuable. Kids were dying, fighting wars on the playground. - It's like currency. - Yeah, literally. - 'Cause like for me, whenever I get like baked cookies or someone who cooks fresh cookies, there's like,

as soon as it comes out the oven, the fucking timer starts. - When it's dry, it's shit. - Yeah, exactly. 'Cause you gotta be like 100% cookie speed right. - I gotta like enjoy this before it starts hardening. And it's like, as soon as it starts hardening, it's one of the few objects in the world where moist is a positive adjective. You know what I mean?

- I get that. - I feel bad when people like make cookies like the day before and they bring them, they're like, "You wanna try one of my home-baked cookies?" I'm like, "I could, I could try one of your home-baked cookies, but I will be sorely disappointed." - It's like those and brownies. Like if I have like a dry brownie, it's like the limpest fix of brownies.

- A brownie does need to be a little like- - Wet. - Yeah. - Moist. - Yeah. - If it all just fucking crumbles apart the moment I touch it, I'm like, well, the structural integrity of this brownie is appalling. - If it's flaky, then it's too dry. - If it's not making like a

- If it's not making that sound, then it's a bad brownie. - I can't be the only one who thinks that. - It needs to be like ASMR levels of like lip smacking in your ears for it to be a good brownie. - Did your supermarkets in Australia like have bakery sections where they would bake things? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we did. - They used to like in the UK to be fair, they used to make pretty fucking good cookies and brownies. Do you think so?

- Wait, Sainsbury's? - Sainsbury's just have their own bakery. - Okay, I've actually, I know the best ones. It goes Sainsbury's, then Tesco's, then Co-op. 'Cause those- - Do these all sound like just made up names? - Yeah, they do. - These are the supermarket chains in the UK. All of them have their own bakery and you get like four fat ass cookies for a pound. And they were always like freshly baked on the day and soft and they were fucking good. - They were good cookies.

- You could buy the like packaged ones, but like why would you do that when you could go and get like a full box of brownies, like 16 little chunks for like a quid. - Right. - And they're freshly baked, right? - Freshly baked, really fucking good. - Yeah, that sounds way better. - Yeah. I'll tell you what I do miss that I didn't think I would.

- Dairy milk chocolate. - Yeah, I like dairy milk chocolate. - Because I thought whenever I came to Japan on holiday and stuff, I was like, man, the chocolate here is bomb. I fucking love the taste of chocolate here. And then after living here a year, I just feel like I've really, something homely about dairy milk. - They've taken the American way of making

- It does taste like American chocolate. - Because what they've done is instead of having more milk and making it like a richer taste, they're like, "Hmm, let's just substitute with more sugar." And then you get this kind of weird chemically taste, which I like Hershey's. Hershey's tastes like just in my mind, like question marks with sugar.

It's like, I don't know what this tastes like. It doesn't taste like chocolate. It tastes like a made up- - I'm not a fan of Hershey's at all. - American chocolate does not taste like chocolate. - I used to really like Hershey's. I still kind of do whenever I'm in the UK or whenever I- - It's not as rich so you can eat more of it. - Yeah, because what Hershey's tastes like, it tastes like cooking chocolate.

And I don't know why- - Oh, like the melting chocolate. - Yeah, yeah, I don't know why as a kid, I fucking loved cooking chocolate because it just- - It's normally for poorer quality. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's poorer quality. But as a kid, I just like, anytime we'd like cook chocolate, I just like always have to dip my finger in it and give it a quick taste. - Oh yeah, of course, of course. - That's what Hershey's tastes like. So as an adult, eating Hershey's,

like brings me back to being a kid. And then I have two bars and I'm just like, okay, this is actually just shit chocolate. Nostalgia gone, it's just shit chocolate now. - Like Americans man, you've been rough man. I know we clown you guys all the time, but like your chocolate is fucking awful. Please like import some like milk or dairy milk or something. - Cadbury milk chocolate is the fucking best. - Yeah, Cadbury is dairy milk. - It's owned by an American company.

- Yeah. - But it used to be. I mean, a lot of the British chocolate is really good. I think that's one of the things we actually did pretty well. - British chocolate? - Yeah, I think chocolate in the UK is really fucking good. - I think chocolate all over Europe. - Yeah, that's pretty damn fucking good. - You guys get it from Europe, that's why. - It gets hella bougie in like the rest of Europe and like- - Like Swiss chocolates and stuff? - Swiss chocolate is fucking great. - It's great, but is it like,

- It's like seven bucks sometimes for a small piece. - It's great, but every time I have a bite of Swiss chocolate, I can feel the chocolate entering my veins. - Yeah, it's very intense. - It's so rich. - Depends, 'cause I think my favorite big brand Swiss chocolate is like Lindt. - I do like Lindt. - Yeah, Lindt's really good. - But you gotta sit down after you have a bite. You're like, "Oh, oh!" - It's fucking great. - It's like doing a pint of cocaine after Lindt. - It fucking is. You go on a journey. When you take that one bite, man, you just like,

- It needs to be like, okay, when the truffle inside is just like the perfect consistency. When you bite off the hard shell and it just the soft truffle and it's just like, ah, it's beautiful. My mouth is watering just describing it. - I fucking love a good Ferrero Rocher. - Oh, Ferrero Rocher, oh my God. - God damn. - Ferrero Rocher is fucking amazing. - Ferrero Rocher milkshakes are like the best thing ever. - Ferrero Rocher's ice cream. Ice cream is fucking great as well. - You can like grind it into like a milkshake. It's fucking amazing.

- Oh, like DIY? - Yeah. - Oh wow. - Some places do it. - Really? - Yeah. - That sounds fun. - Also, I feel like I increase a class whenever I say Ferrero Rocher. - Yeah, I do. - It's the most poshest word I can think of off the top of my head. It just sounds so good. - I can feel the monocle forming on my head. - I do need a top hat every time I say Ferrero Rocher. - Ferrero Rocher.

- Yeah, 'cause I feel like you don't, you experience Swiss chocolate. You don't eat Swiss chocolate. You know what I mean? You eat British chocolate. Like it's something you can just eat. You know what I mean? - The Swiss don't do drugs, they do chocolate. - Oh man, sometimes I like buy like a pack of Lindt and I'm just like,

- I'm having a good day today. - Can you eat all of the Lindt package in one go? 'Cause I can't. 'Cause I feel like I need a palate cleanser every time I have a rich chocolate. I'm like, give me the wine to go with it to empty the flavor. - I have a problem where I have one, it's enough. - You have a sweet tooth though, don't you? - I do not have a sweet tooth actually. - Bullshit you do. - I don't. - You always snack on sweets.

- Only in Japan actually, only in Japan. - Really? - 'Cause here's the thing, I hardly ever used to snack. I either was that guy in England who would eat a tub of ice cream or go without sweets for like two weeks. There was no in between for me. Like only in Japan have I ever like kind of embraced snacking culture and that's just because there are so many different kinds of sweets and snacks here. I'm like, I kinda wanna try something every time. - I used to be a sweets guy back in Australia, but then when I moved here, I realized that Japan's

or like confectionary section, there's a lot more savory shit that just tastes way better than the sweet shit. So I always just go for the savory shit now. - It's easier to make something that tastes good that's sweet though. You just fucking put a shit ton of sugar in the corner. - Yeah, but I also feel gross after eating it too, right? - 'Cause if you ever come to my house in England, if you ask for like anything that's not savory snack, I'm probably not gonna have it. Because if I do have a lint, like a chocolate or like a lint box, that's gone in like a few hours.

most of the time. That's 'cause I rarely buy, but when I'm due, I'm like super craving it. I don't know. I mean, I haven't had a Ferrero Rocher in like probably like a year and a half, maybe two years. - Do they sell them in Japan?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - They do? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I never see that. - If you go to like international shops, they'll have it, yeah. - Oh, because like in the UK, that was like the not expensive. It's like the, if you wanna look expensive, but not actually spend too much money, Ferrero Rocher's were the- - I never got Ferrero Rocher. - Everything about Ferrero Rocher just looks fucking posh, man. - It looks fancy, it sounds fancy, but the only thing that isn't fancy is like the price tag. I mean, they're expensive, but compared to like Lint or Lenore or something like that,

- I've had some super, super, you talk about Lint and Ferrero Rocher being like a really like deep taste. - Ferrero Rocher's not that intense. - I've had some like the super expensive chocolates are the ones I feel like you have to do, you're going on a fucking battle with taking a bite out of this man. - Ferrero Rocher is like the premium economy. - Yeah. - It's just a little bit better than normal. - Yeah, have you ever had like,

- Truly like you go into like a specialist chocolatier shop kind of shop. - Yeah. - Try one of those chocolates. - They always give you like the super intense, like dark chocolate. Cause that's like the purest form. And then I eat this and I'm like, yeah, it tastes like fucking ash. - But do you like dark chocolate? - I do, but there's a limit. - Right. It's like 90% cacao. - Yeah, cause you'll go to places like chocolatier places and they'll be like, it's amazing, isn't it? And it's like 80% like cocoa and then you're like.

- Yeah, that's great. - Sometimes I have like one bite and I'm like, oh, I got to fucking battle this. I'm having a fucking battle in my mouth, like trying to get this down. - Like I get it if I was having like an espresso or something to go with it, perfect. They'll wash each other out and you know, I'll feel,

but when you have one bite of super dark chocolate, it's fucking stays with you for the rest of the day. - Yeah, it does. - You cannot get the taste out of your mouth. - Yeah. - And I don't wanna feel like I've just bleached my mouth. - I've never thought about having chocolates with like anything else actually. - Really? It's with coffee, it's like the best. - Yeah, you gotta have it with the coffee. - I don't eat chocolate unless it's with a hot drink. - I don't know, I find it,

'Cause for me, like coffee and tea, I just like by itself. I've never tried. 'Cause if you dip something into the tea, that kind of like changes the taste in my opinion. - No, I don't dip it, I eat it. - You eat it and then you drink it. - It's like a palate cleanser. 'Cause like if your mouth is too chocolatey, you can't keep eating more chocolate. - I might wanna give that a go then because I've only- - This man never thought to combine the two. - No, because I never, yeah, I never thought about it. - Chocolate and tea.

- Unspeakable. - No, 'cause chocolate has always been a snack for me that I have by myself. - Why do you think that at a restaurant, like a fancy restaurant, there'll be like coffee and dessert? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Coffee and chocolates. - Yeah, 'cause they go together.

- God's just like, wow, I didn't know that. - I thought you were supposed to eat all the chocolate and then down your tea. - Are you telling me chocolate's meant to be just a snack and not just a dessert? 'Cause I guess that's the way I see all chocolates. It's not, like I said, I never used to snack. It was my dessert, I guess. It was like a full on, I'm either committing to this- - It's very sad to have a chocolate bar and be like, ah yes, dessert. - My dessert. - My dessert. - Yeah, 'cause I actually didn't start enjoying wine.

- As a kid or like as like a teenager, I would say wine was like the one alcohol that I just couldn't get into. I didn't understand why people liked wine. And then I remember the first time I tried red wine or good red wine with good steak. And it was just like an instant eyeopening moment for me.

- Let's be honest, you can't really enjoy wine unless you have a bit of disposable income, really. I don't know about you growing up, but parents were like, think that's a waste of money. - No, but even before, whenever you'd go out with your family or one of your rich relatives or whatever, and you try this good expensive wine, and the only thing you can think of, this isn't fucking worth 80 bucks. Are you fucking kidding me?

And to be honest, I still think that. I still think any, like, I'm probably making some sommelier cry here, but I've never tasted like a wine above then let's say 50 bucks that has tasted a lot greater than some of like the best wines you can get. - Yeah, like a $60 wine tastes the same to me as like a $200 wine.

- Yeah, exactly. - I mean, I've had like, you know, you can buy wine at convenience stores here for like as cheap as four bucks. - It's not good wine though. - It's not good wine. I can tell you the difference between that, but like the more expensive quote unquote wines that you can buy like a 7-Eleven is like a thousand yen. And those are actually perfectly fine. Like I've had a few of those where I'm just like, you know what? This is actually pretty good for a thousand yen wine.

- It's good for Konbini wine. - Konbini wine is the best you're gonna get. - Shout out to alpaca wine, which is like, alpaca wine is like, what's like an equivalent of like the cheap one? - Echo Falls. - Echo Falls. Alpaca wine is like the Echo Falls of Japan. - In the UK, it's the cheapest wine brand. - Like a box wine?

- It's the uni, but there is- - Oh, the uni wine. - It's about four pound for a bottle. - Right, right. - And it's like always flavored like a kid's drink. It's like lime and grapefruit. And it just tastes like antifreeze with grape hint. - Yeah, we have that in Australia. It just tastes like washing detergent, grape flavored. - It's fucking awful.

- But you know what else I'm grateful for? - What? - Our patrons. - Oh my God. - Oh my God. - They're awesome. Look at all of them. - Shout out to that guy on the screen right now. - They like eating chocolate and wine. - I bet they do. - They hate hard biscuits. - This guy's a sommelier. - They think biscuits mid. - They hate taxi rides. - Thank you for the- - Just talk about everything we talked about and they're like, "Yes, can you relate?" - They hate anime themed cafes.

- Yeah, yeah, they hate that. - We didn't start off on that, didn't we? - Thank you for joining us today on The Trash Taste. Garnt, do you want to do our outro? - Again, contractually, because we have to say it, thank you to G Fuel for sponsoring this episode. - Cool. - Hey, if you'd like to support us on Patreon, go to patreon.com/trashtaste. Also follow us on Twitter and subreddit, and for audio listeners, go over to our Spotify.

And yeah, Joey literally said everything that I needed to say. So thanks for taking the- - Do the outro. - Thank you for taking the host spot from me, Joey. So I guess we'll- - I've been your host Connor. - I've been your host Joey as well. - Bye bye. - Bye. - Guys, I wanted to say the outro.