Japan w/ Dragos | You Be Trippin' with Ari Shaffir

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Where you been and where you going?

This is our Reece Travel Show, yeah.

We're gonna talk about travel today.

It's you'll be tripping, yeah.

Okay, hello, welcome to You Be Trippin', the world's only travel podcast.

Uh, today I'm here with my friend Dragos.

How's it going, guys?

Good to be here.

Meow, we did a great show yesterday in Clujna Poca.

Clujna Poca, Romania.

That's where we're at at the moment.

You can see behind us, there's the number one landmark here at Clujna Poca.

Is Is that the number one landmark?

I would think so.

Yeah, that's the number one.

It's celebrating history.

I'm pretty sure that's what it is.

Who is that guy?

I'm pretty sure that's, I think it's Matei.

Mateo Zurich Matei.

I thought it was Stefan Gelamati, but it's not.

It seems like it's Matei of some sort.

I'm pretty sure he was one of the warlords that kind of helped found this area of Romania.

Dude, I love a fucking warlord origin story.

That's what it is.

My name is actually based on a warlord.

It's a lot of.

Yeah, yeah.

Whose is yours?

I used to be like the

voievod of Moldovia, one of the warlords of Moldova, the region where we're in at the moment.

Used to kill people, get a point across, get his point across.

Yeah, I wonder if that gypsy lady's going to take her to the point.

I think she's going to be a little bit more.

You got to always be in the look of it.

I think she's just got the rain.

We left all our stuff like that.

Lucia is a very safe city.

I'm just going to come out and say that it's a very safe city.

No one's going to, nothing bad's going to happen.

But, you know, you just got to exercise caution wherever you go.

The beggars here are a different thing.

Like in San Francisco, it used to be like hipsters that were beggars.

And in New York,

like uh it's like heroin addicts and then here it's the gypsies that are like another thing the uh the Roma community as we like to call them back here in Romania they're yeah it's a it's a whole different story I think we got to do a whole podcast about yeah yeah exactly exactly um okay so we we're gonna do this as a backdrop we can't let's um let's go sit in there and we'll do it at a cafe you can order for us and uh

we've got a rainy day here in clujah at the moment yeah would have been a perfect fucking backdrop yeah i mean yesterday was a lot a lot better but you know it is what it is you got to take what uh Christian Orthodox Jesus gives you.

Yeah, okay, so where are we going today?

What's the story?

It's very fun.

I'm going to tell you guys a little bit more.

Let me get there.

Set this up.

Oh, we got to order coffee before we can just bum the place.

Yeah.

Let's try a Romanian.

What do you?

So, I'm, you, what would you like to get?

Let's see if we can get across.

If I can try it?

No,

you tell me what you want.

A coffee?

Yeah, maybe just a cappuccino with oat milk.

Okay, so if you want to get that, you'd have to say

un cappuccino culapt de ovaz terog fromos.

Can you get that in?

I said that right.

I said correct, that okay.

Oh, ovez.

That's okay.

That's oat.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, yeah.

That's like Spanish.

Yeah, un capuchino cun lapte de ovaz.

Terog fromos.

That's please.

Okay.

We gotta add a little bit of, you know, politeness to the discourse here in Romania, right?

Yeah, oh, yeah.

Stop.

Okay.

And you want to try that eggplant thing?

Yeah, and then shios a divinity.

Yeah.

You okay?

Muzimos.

Mutumz.

There you go, you got that Mutsumaz down.

Yes, Ari.

Ari, the Roman

blood.

Yeah,

it's coming.

It's resonating.

So, Dragos, tell us where you

want to make sure.

Is that good?

Yeah.

You want me to jump on there?

No, you're good.

Alrighty.

Where are we going?

Tell me where you're going to tell me about.

I used to live in Japan for three years.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

That was a pretty

three years.

It's

a wild time.

I went there in

the end of 2012.

I don't know if you remember, 2012 was supposed to be the end of the world.

Yep, Mayana.

Yeah, that was big on the end of the world.

And I was like, if it's going out, I'm going out to Japan.

That wasn't the reason, but I relocated to Japan.

I'd finished my studies.

I was studying in Japanese.

Wait, really?

That's where you went?

Yeah, I went there for three years.

No, no, you didn't go there because of the Mayans.

No, no, no, I didn't go there because of the Mayans.

But I'd like to think that

I was kind of keeping an eye on the thing.

Yeah.

And a little part of me was like, you know.

Rooting for it right yeah i'm rooting for it yeah exactly i was like you know if it i do hope it comes and it gets me in japan because that would be like a nice bow tie to the whole life story you know

uh so i ended up going to japan i i worked there for three years um what'd you do i was working in recruitment uh which is what sounds like uh basic job yeah because the thing is i i didn't speak any japanese

So then like I wanted to at that time like my girlfriend was Japanese as well.

She had to go back and I had figured like let me just go check out the country you know and see what happens.

And I got there and I didn't speak any Japanese, but turns out that if you only spoke English and you had a bit of grit, you know, basically if you could handle cold calling,

it's very...

Wait, you did it in English?

I did it in English, yeah.

So I was recruiting basically for banks.

I was recruiting different kinds of professionals for banks, international banks, like your JP Morgan's, Goldman Sachs, for like an outside agency.

And all this work was done in English because you got to call people while Japanese people that have never changed jobs in their life.

you got to call them while they are at work and convince them to change their job.

And this is Japanese people doing it more and more now, but at that time it was considered very rude.

Yeah, I bet.

It's very rude to call somebody while they're at work.

And also to be like, hey, your life's not really going well.

Yeah, here's what you should do instead.

And then one.

Yeah, and then what would happen is like if you're a foreigner, you're already rude.

You know?

Do they not like foreigners?

Japan is changing quite a lot.

Japan is, true or false, the number one Asians.

Number one Asians, I would say so, yeah.

In their minds, for sure, right?

I think in their I mean, in their minds, undoubtedly.

Yeah.

There's definitely.

It's so funny, you can't really talk about the hierarchy, but if you ask them about the hierarchy, they will tell you, unless they're in the lower half.

I got a lot of friends.

I got a lot of Asian friends who will clarify this.

Break it down exactly.

They'll be like, you know, let me tell you how it's gone,

how it looks like.

But yeah, I was there for about three years, and I was living in Tokyo.

Yeah.

I was living in.

Go on.

It's the station where I was staying is

Morishita is the station where I was staying.

I picked up a little bit of Japanese while I was there, but not

too extensively.

It's called Izakaya Japanese.

And Izakaya is like the place where you go and drink with your friends, right?

So it's just like a little bit of enough to speak to drunk Japanese people.

So I was staying at Morishita.

Morishita station is somewhere in the

east of Tokyo.

And as a point of reference, it's two stations away from Ryogoku.

And Ryogoku is the sumo arenas.

Did you go to those?

I did not go to the sumo arenas because I just couldn't find fucking tickets all the time.

And then sometimes, you know, you're there.

Three years you never went.

I did not.

That seemed like the number one thing I would do.

I regret it to this day.

Yeah, okay, okay.

But I would always see.

I feel like I'm not proud of it already.

I would always see

sumo players on bikes around my house.

Like, they can get around on bikes?

Yeah, exactly.

Are they like wobbling down the middle?

This is what I'm saying.

Like, it looks very, very funny.

Yeah, it's like Burke Kreischer on a bike.

Yeah.

You got a big sumo guy on a bike, and they're going to do groceries, right?

Because they live in that area.

Yeah.

And

it was always, I was sitting around the place, and I'd be like, yeah, I'll always kind of like, you know, have a, I'll be a chuckle.

Look at this bear.

Just a fat fuck on a bike?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like wobbling down in the middle.

Very honorable fat fuck.

Are they revered there?

They are, yeah.

I mean, the sport is like, you know, it's like.

Were you there when the American, that was before you, when the American came in and started dominating?

I'm not sure exactly.

When I was watching it, there were a couple of American guys because

it was a big thing where you could watch it on TV.

And there was a couple of American guys.

There was a couple of, I think, guys from Azerbaijan as well.

I remember that some American guy came in and he was like, had a real respect for the history of Sumo and everything.

But there,

honestly, now, it's almost exactly like a trans issue.

Right.

People are like, that's not right.

They're not like us.

It's.

It doesn't look okay.

Yeah.

You gotta, you know, this seems like a Japanese thing, you know?

Yeah.

I mean, I'm happy to welcome in everybody and stuff, but like

it doesn't look as fun.

Yeah.

Did you make friends there?

Did you like what like locals?

Yeah, I had a couple of friends.

So basically, because I was in

a, the company I was working for was actually British, so they would hire foreigners and also Japanese.

So I had a good mix of friends that are like Japanese locals.

Tokyo is such a,

it's a massive city, right?

Yeah.

So you'll get a lot, a lot of diversity in terms of you'll get a lot of

Japanese educated in the US that come back and they work for the bank.

Oh, cool.

You'll get a lot of Japanese that go to international schools in Tokyo, right?

Yeah.

and so it's a quite range of stuff, quite a range of people.

And then you have Japanese people that moved over from like different parts of Japan.

The Inaka, as they call it in Japan, like the like that would kind of like be like the villages.

But it's not villages, just like the rural areas.

And they would move over, and you kind of get a bit of a look into the society, right?

But because I was working very closely with bankers, and I also had a couple of friends that are there,

yeah, it would be very interesting because I got to see a couple of parts of Japan that normally I think you would normally see you would not be exposed to, right?

So I led for three years, I was like a Japanese salaryman.

Salaryman?

You know the salaryman concept?

No.

It's like these guys that have a suit, they got their little

suit, their little like bag, and they get on the trains in the morning, they do the commute.

Yeah.

And they like exchange and they go into like a beehive, you know?

Yeah, and then they shoot themselves when they're fucking 62.

Yeah, well, they prefer jumping in front of trains.

It's not a gun crucially.

I meant like everywhere, but yeah.

Yeah, good point.

So, you know, we gotta really pay attention to the cultural suppleties.

Yeah, we got the food coming in here.

There we go.

Look at that.

Well, that's the eggplant.

That's the egg.

Yeah, man.

It's the salata de vinete.

Yeah.

And then your coffee, your uh.

You want anything?

You want a coffee?

You split this with me anyway?

Yeah,

we can have this a little bit.

This is your coffee over here.

And then this is where you get a chance to say your magic word.

Mochamasu.

There you go.

Mercia.

Ari's got it down.

They also say merci here.

Yeah, they say mercia.

You gotta go for the Mutsumasu.

What's thank you in Japanese?

Domo.

It's domo, it's arigato, it's uh

it depends on the thing about Japanese language, it has different levels.

Because you've got like, you know, like colloquial Japanese, and then you've got like keigo.

And keigo is like,

you know, basically business Japanese, but with a high level of respect.

And it's like almost a different language, right?

Because like all the phrasings are

quite different.

Yeah.

Like for example,

if you were to say

sorry, like in colloquial, Japanese, it would be like sumasen, which is like I'm sorry.

But then in Keigo, it would be like,

which means like, I have no reason for existing.

Which is like a very, you know, like samurai type of way of saying it.

I love they had that one, it's one of my favorite phrases in Spanish.

It's a no pasanada.

No pasanada.

It's just such a like, it's like, oh, hey, thanks for bringing it.

And it's like, nothing, like, nothing happened.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Don't even worry about it don't worry about it there's no don't stress a lot yeah so japan like even in my company like there there would be people that um would have difficulty with keigo because it's a it's a kego is like business japanese is a whole different skill you know yeah my sister has difficulty with kegels no it's that kegels that's a that's a vagina thing right

over and over again yeah anyway i mean hey every culture has its unique aspect

but um so what was saying about yeah so the idea was that uh within japanese there's a lot of there's a lot of structure you know there's a lot of they have like a lot of a a lot of things going on.

And with the salaryman culture, you go into work and

you start at 8, and because you want to be a good salary guy, you want to be a good employee, you finish at 9 or 10 p.m.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, this is the intensity.

That's the stereotype of that.

And that's basically the problem with having to, because I was doing recruitment there, you'd have to convince these people to move jobs, you know?

And they're like, I'm working here for 11 hours a day, 12 hours a day.

There's no way I'm not going to move a job.

Yeah, exactly.

And then they go home, and it's like

there's a lot of elements in Japanese culture that

we can discuss in a lot of ways.

It's weird, like during COVID, I don't know if you had this where it's like you had a moment to reflect.

And I think a lot of people are like, oh, I don't want to do this job or I want to live in the city.

Because you needed a second to think, and no one had a second to think.

And if with that lifestyle, you don't ever get a second to think.

You don't ever get a second to think, yeah.

And that's the point.

You got to do your job.

But yeah, that's kind of like how I got at the.

I started doing comedy full-time because I was like, if I didn't have to work for money, what would I be doing?

And then the answer to me was comedy, and then I even made it happen.

Yeah,

oh, that's nice.

Good backrest.

What more could you want out of life?

Guys, let me break into today's episode to tell you a little bit about the guest, Dragos.

He's a great comedian, lives in Berlin, and he's making his first tour to the United States.

I got some dates for you.

Check out all his dates on Dragoscomedy.com.

It's spelled Dragos, but it's Dragos because he's a third-generation vampire.

Yeah,

it started in Transylvania, and then that was first generation.

They moved over to his region, infected a few more, and then another generation came,

got his people, and then he moved to Berlin, and he's spreading it now to Berlin.

May 8th, New York sold out.

May 9th, tickets available.

May 10th, sold out New York.

Ah, he's killing New York.

The Romanians are all coming by.

Is that a Romanian dance?

Washington, D.C., May 12th, Philadelphia, May 13th, Chicago, May 16th.

May 20th, Toronto is sold out.

So they added a May 19th show.

Montreal, May 21st, 7 p.m.

sold out.

9 p.m.

added.

Go to DragosComedy.com.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, DragosComedy.com.

And check out a special.

The Shenzhen Special available on YouTube right now.

We had a blast in Romania.

We did a podcast, as you can see, in the town square in Clujnaboko, a place you probably will never get to.

If I had to guess, you'll probably never go there.

I tried to get a postcard from that lady directly behind us selling postcards.

And

my bill was too big.

It was like a 15-cent postcard.

I tried to pay with like a 20.

And she's like, no.

I was like, credit card?

That was her impression of her laugh.

When I said credit card for a 15-cent postcard.

Oh, that country is.

I'll talk about it in the outro.

But I've also took out some dates.

Not many, guys.

I'm going to be in Anchorage, Alaska, June 18th.

And I'm going to be doing a gig in Charlestown, West Virginia on July

12th or 14th.

Let's see here.

And then that's it.

I'm gone.

You can get subscribed right now.

Oh, 12th.

July 12th.

Charlestown, West Virginia.

Casino.

That'll be my last, last, last, last, last one.

Get tickets at RoshiFair.com and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening or watching.

I appreciate it.

I want to go to more fun places like this

to bring you guys a little piece of my travels.

This is Ecuador.

From west to east.

The Amazon's over there.

You can't see it.

Flag.

Linked forever.

Yeah, everybody keeps asking about Israel and palestine and nobody asked about ecuador i've spent way more time recently there i'm way more connected why don't you ask me about ecuador what could it be what could it be to make you ask one thing and not the other what could it be i can't quite put my finger on it let's get back to the episode dragos

what um what like what did you get into i want to know what the food was like I want to know what how expensive it was.

I want to know what the bathrooms are like.

Yeah, yes, bro.

The food is just another level.

Like, man, the food was amazing.

Like, that is the, the, the thing is, the balance between quality and price

was insane.

You got very high-quality food at very low prices, right?

Really?

Yeah, it's insane.

Like,

you go to Japan and you have, like, the ramen there, and then the sushi, and you come back to, you know, Europe or the USA, and it's like, well, I guess I'm gonna, you know, I guess I'm gonna eat like a, like a pig out of a fucking.

And it's, and

it's the same thing.

You're not eating like, like, well, a meal here and a meal there.

It's like, I'm eating the same meal.

I'm eating ramen here.

Yeah, but the thing is, they do it, they have the, you know, they've been doing it for fucking hundreds of years.

So they have like this.

I think the thing is they're very proud of like mastery.

Oh, wow.

And the best example I can give you is, so the food is like really, really, really good and very accessible.

Like, for example, I would get a bento for lunch, which is like a packed meal from downstairs.

Yeah.

I'll go back and eat it at my desk because that's how much of a salary man I was.

Because you know, you know, you want to want them to see you working, right?

It's not necessarily about like

output of

quality.

It's more like how many, how dedicated are you to this company?

How many hours of your life are you giving here, right?

Dude, it's funny because you live now in the country, you live in Berlin,

in the country where

it's my standard of like they respect the fucking human experience.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're like, take your weeks off, take them off.

And in America, it's probably in between this and Japan where they're like, look, you get two weeks off, but don't take it.

Work through those two weeks.

Work at your desk also.

Yeah, the Japanese culture does reward how many hours of your life you give to them.

And not necessarily in an efficient way.

Look at those goth gays.

Yeah, yeah.

Do they have that inclusion?

Oh, those are students, probably.

Oh, yeah, I think they're students, yeah.

They look like that's the Berlin little cap.

Yeah, that is a Berlin cap.

Do you want to shave my head like the Berlin?

Like, yeah, we can definitely do it.

I think when I get home, I'm going to do it for the summer.

I saw it everywhere, and I'm like, yeah.

That's the way you go home, right?

So, yeah, Germany does reward.

There's a bit of a focus.

It's not as aggressive as France in terms of quality of life focus, you know, because they take August off.

Yeah, exactly.

They give you a whole fucking month off, right?

But they do, like, you know, it's a good system in terms of, like, yeah, you don't feel bad for paying taxes in Germany because, like, you know, you're getting, everybody's getting fucking, you know, like, if you get fired, you get like a year unemployment, you know?

My brother got

downsized.

Right.

And he goes, yeah, we get a year unemployment at like 80% of your salary.

It wasn't just like a little bit.

And I was like, you can look for another job.

Maybe you didn't hear me.

Yeah, I'm getting 80%.

I've had friends in Berlin that basically use that one year to kind of get their comedy careers off the ground.

Well, that's what it's for.

I was on unemployment in Los Angeles for nine years.

I would pay and do a commercial and then get fired type of thing.

It was a two-day job.

And it was like, people are like, you're abusing the system.

It's like, they're letting me achieve my dreams.

Yeah, yeah.

It's, and it does work.

I mean, obviously, some there's different opinions in Germany about like there's a bit of a stigma.

And if you go on welfare, like if you go on like unemployment, then you're a loser or whatever.

But like, you know, shake it.

Yeah, it's a it's a it's a tool.

You know, if you use it the right way, you can really get a business off the ground that is going to pay more taxes on, you know?

Hold on.

Let's get back to Japan.

This is always my problem.

I get all over the place.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So in Japan, basically.

So ramen, what was good?

Ramen?

Ramen is great, man.

Like, if you if you you just walk into a random place and you've got the most amazing ramen experience, right?

Wow.

Like, this is the thing:

the level of mastery for a particular dish was something that I really take pride in.

And my favorite thing is, I used to live next to this

kushiaki place where it's basically skewers.

You know, like they do different.

If you put different things on a skewer and you kind of put it over a grill.

And, bro, I would love this place.

It was so fucking good.

Like, the prices were...

Like, what are we talking about?

Like, we're talking about 30 yen.

30 yen, which is, let's say 100 yen is a dollar.

Right?

Yeah.

Now the dollar is like the conversion rate is like it's 124.

Like when I was in Japan, it was like 124.

It was 30 yen for what?

A skewer?

Yeah.

So wait.

So that's 30 cents.

What?

Yeah.

And then you just.

Wow.

Yeah, take a chance.

Yeah, man.

If you're like, I don't know what that is, you're like, let me just go for it.

Exactly, yeah.

And it was great.

Do you ever have something and then eat it like nah, and then just sometimes, yeah.

Bro, they would make these

cherry tomatoes wrapped in bacon with a little bit of cheese and it was like I think it was like 75 yen and it was like amazing it was like an orgasm in your mouth

the food in Japan is something that I do really miss it was just high quality especially living in fucking Germany now

yeah we were talking about it what fucking terrible taste food

is breaded shit you know you gotta you gotta there's trade-offs to be had in life you know yeah no wonder they're into scat born

shit tastes better

it's like I need some flavor.

Let me eat your ass.

Give him some spice, bro.

Oh, man.

But the food was great.

And the skewers, the kushiaki place, this place would just they would put like a lot of stuff.

Sometimes you have like the tongue of some animal on a skewer and

that'd be just like the chicken.

I don't know how the fuck they did it.

Yeah.

But it was just like insane.

I think they like did a little brush of soya on it as well.

It was like amazing.

And the thing is, you can go there and spend like 20 bucks and you would, it would be a feast.

I had my some of my friends visited me from some of my Romanian friends that live in London they came over and I took them to this place and they were like I can't believe this is real like this cannot be real this is like like it was insane and you get the whole thing like because

like you're also sitting under like a table you're not sitting on a chair right yeah

the pillows thing yeah yeah yeah it's like I think it was a tatami mat which uh tatami tatami is being skull it's like the made out of like it's like this form of uh what's it this plant that what do you what do you fuck I don't know what it's called it's uh you know like when it's bamboo bamboo of sorts yeah yeah I I think that's what it was, right?

And then the tables are the tables here, you know, sitting under, and you have like, sometimes in the winter, you have this blanket that's called a kotatsu, and you can go under it and you stay warm and you eat the things, and it's just like, it's a, the thing about Japan, it's like, it's like another world.

Like, because they developed so much in isolation, like, for so many years.

Oh, yeah, and just created a different ecosystem, you know, like culturally, like, the way that they eat food, the way that they prepare it.

I heard there's a type of seaweed that everyone's allergic to except Japanese, because they've been eating it for some millions of years and they're just like we know how to develop it could be like I haven't necessarily had that but like there's different parts of Japan and I think if you want to talk about food again the sushi fucking oh yeah sushi must be great yeah let's let me tell I want to do more of this it's like the just the feeling of long-term travel three years is like you're there yeah it's not just like oh like here in cluj this is nice but I don't I'm not I'm there's like I'm seeing stuff but I'm not like feeling the feeling of travel but like

when you have friends come to visit you yeah it's almost like, tell me if I'm wrong, right?

This bragging thing, like showing off, like, look at the meal, look how expensive it is.

Bro, it's like, it's, it's, it's like you're taking them, you're taking them by the hand and you're basically leading them into Narnia, you know?

Like, I don't know any other comparison.

You're like taking them to like the Lord of the Rings world, you know?

Yeah.

And it's like, look at this, look at this.

And in like in a, in a very cool way where they're like, they're just genuinely curious about it.

Yeah.

And they're very appreciative about it, you know?

Yeah.

So it's like you can take them around to like the different areas, like just from like the Ginza area, which is like the commercial shopping area,

to like Omote Sando and some other areas where

they're more focused on like, you know, temples and like, you know, the Imperial Palace.

And just taking them on the...

Yeah, like just seeing a lot of stuff.

It's really cool to like be a guide, you know?

Yeah.

Like act like a guide for some showing them the things you discovered.

Yeah.

You know, I was telling you before we started recording about like Akihabara.

which is like the electric city where they have a lot of the games, the arcades, and this is in Tokyo.

Yeah, in Tokyo, yeah.

And it's just like, what the fuck, you know?

What did it look like?

Do you have pictures from that time?

I think I do have some pictures.

Yeah, I'll check them out.

Basically, it's just like

you know those billboards you see in the in the movies about like Japan, like those big like lit up type of like

that all.

What is it with Japanese and like and like that bright lights and anime and fucking

all that shit?

What is it?

It's you know what it is?

It's like bullet train that that look of bullet train that movie.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Where do they get that aesthetic?

It's I

I think it probably does have to do something with the writing typography, you know, the kanji.

Because if you look at kanji, the writing style, you know, like they have three ways of writing in Japan, it's hiragana, katakana, and kanji.

And kanji is basically just the symbols, right?

Okay.

And then the symbol means something.

It's like basically, it's kind of like a

old version of an emoji.

Like, you know, like, that's the easiest way I can explain it, right?

Yeah.

So like, it's very visual.

Because when you learn kanji.

can I guess something?

Yeah.

So, if, like, one, let's say you had one that said that would say like bush, and then another symbol that said smelly, yeah.

And if you put those together, it means pussy.

Yeah, something of the sort, yeah.

Yeah, that's not far from the truth.

Yeah, that is how that happens, right?

So, then the idea, but then, like, you, the kanji for smelly would be like

a very simplified version of somebody holding.

This is not, I don't know what the kanji for a smelly is, but like somebody holding their nose, you know?

So, if you use your imagination, you can actually see.

Because, like, for example, the kanji for forest is basically it looks like Mori, right?

Because the area where I would live at it was called Mori Shita and then Mori means forest and Shita means bottom.

So the station, the metro station was the bottom of the forest.

Oh interesting.

But the Mori is basically like a square with like three little elements that look like trees.

You know, so it's like very visual.

So the writing style is very visual and I think in turn what happened was everything else kind of became a little bit more visual.

You know, everything was like, let's go in all the visual stuff.

So like for example, you'd have the like these big billboards are super visual.

If you go to some of their like websites, the websites in Japan are very different from the websites that are created, like you see in the Western world, right?

Because

they're full of like visual ads.

If you go to like their Amazon, it's called Rakuten.

And Rakuten is just like, it's fucking, if you don't, if you go for the first time, you're like, I cannot.

It looks like Yahoo back in like 2004.

Everything was going on.

Everything is at the same time, right?

Yeah.

They just know how to concentrate it.

Yeah, exactly.

Because it's just like second nature.

Because

even the way you read stuff in Japan, you don't, you know, when you read a book

here in Europe, you read it from left to right.

In Japan, if you start a book, you read it from right to left.

Yeah, you start a book like that, and then the way that the kanji is on the paper, it's not like this, you know?

It's not hard.

It's vertical.

Oh.

Yeah, so you read like this.

You know, you have to like root, root.

Oh, so they're just used to like.

Yeah, yeah.

So like it's a different kind of like way of like of doing things in terms of like, that's what I'm saying.

Like it developed in a completely different world, right?

Uh so like with the regards to like Akihabara, like I would I would go there quite often because it was next to my house and you know I always like games and stuff.

Like I just bought the new Zelda game, you know, like I have like a Nintendo Switch and I'm on the plane I'm like

playing and stuff.

And Japan, you know, like...

It's a city of games?

Yeah, it's basically, yeah, it's kind of like I would say like it's because in Japan like the size of the places is massive, right?

So like let's say Akihabara probably has like maybe like 200,000 people, you know, or something of those sorts.

Oh.

But it's basically like, I think maybe it's easier to explain as a whole block, but like your concept of a block might be smaller than their concept of a block, right?

But it's the, they call it the Electric City.

Yeah.

And effectively, it's within Tokyo, right?

Yeah.

And they've got like all kinds of arcade games.

So all the arcade games you might have known from the US, you know, a lot of them come from Japan, like for example, like Sonic, Street Fighter.

Oh, yeah, yeah, Nintendo is.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

A Mario, Mario Kart.

You got these big, big games.

That's just them being racist against Italians.

I don't know what the history was there, but like, yeah, it's a me, I'm Mario.

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I heard, I saw some breakdown and who knows what it's based in, but they were like, it's like the Donkey Kong will capture the princess, and the Italians have to do whatever, and it's just like, it's the Japanese being like, look at these fucking whites.

Black people are fucking their whites.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they're trying to get them back and forth.

I'm sure, like, there's some racial context in there, you know?

Yeah.

Like, let's not, because they initially Donkey Kong was the villain of like Mario if I've found the same thing.

Yeah.

Like, it wasn't Bowser, it was like Donkey Kong.

Yeah.

And then they switched it up because of the.

Yeah, they were like, well, that's a guy.

This is on the nose over here, you know?

Yeah.

Mamma Mia.

You know what I mean?

There's some ad in, I forget where, it's China or Japan, but they're similar.

And it's some black guy, and this woman's, like, shoving him into a washing machine.

Then he comes out white or Asian.

And he's like, thanks.

There's some inbuilt.

I mean, look,

every nationality, every culture has some inbuilt biases and stuff.

But then there's this video online of this.

This guy who has white gloves.

He's a black guy, right?

He's got like white gloves and he has a mask.

And he goes to this Korean lady and he has a mask under the mask, right?

And he takes the first mask off, and the lady's like, ah, and then he takes the second mask off, and his face is black, and she's like, ah!

Yeah, there is some degree of

so wild.

We're so far past that that it's like, oh, wow.

Yeah, Japan does have that.

I had a couple of friends in Japan.

They were like, they're mixed race, right?

So one of their dad is like Jamaican or something of the sorts.

And

they did have issues because Japanese people tend to be, you know, particularly discriminatory against people of color.

It's getting better every day at the the moment, but they would call them, and I think this is a derogatory term, hafu.

Hafu?

Yeah, because it's haf.

Yeah, but you wouldn't want to use it in Japan because it's derogatory.

It's kind of like them using the N-word.

People will get quite offended.

But yeah, it's just again, it's so many layers of the culture because it's such a big,

you have this massive culture, you got like people coming in, now they want to get more people in, you know, they're getting Filipinos in.

And they'd be like, guys, can you quit yelling halfling at these fucking people?

Yeah, people really hurting our turn.

Yeah, Japanese racism is not like in your face.

They don't yell it on the street.

Yeah.

But they just ice you out out of things, you know?

I got so sick of it in Indonesia once.

I think it was Malai.

Farong.

No, Farong is Thailand.

Malai.

And I think it translates to white, but then it just became all foreigners.

And I just hear it here at her.

And it's not racist, but it started as racist and then just became like foreigner.

But I remember being on a bus and then they're all looking at me like a shape and they're like, I'm Malai.

And they speak.

And they just keep hearing it.

And eventually another person got in, like, Malayan, like, Malai.

Like, Like, Malai, Malai, I hear you.

Yeah, I'll do it.

He was like, enough.

It's a lot of times they don't mean it in a...

Yeah.

It's not with malice, you know?

Right, right, right, right.

The malice was taken out.

Yeah, for example, like in Malaysia and Singapore, like, uh, people would refer to like me as Angmo.

Angmo is like the word for like a foreigner, but it means, I think, if I'm not mistaken, and feel free to correct me if you if you see this, it means red hair.

Because like the first white, the first white people that they got were the Dutch.

And then, like, that's what the association was.

White people are Angmo, so that's why

this guy's a red hair.

I got no red hair.

Yeah.

But

unless I'm shaving my pubes with a razor, am I right?

Yeah, it's a story for another time, guys.

All right, let's back to Japan.

Yeah, let's go back to Japan.

What did you get into?

What did you like to do?

What kind of things do you remember?

Yeah, I mean, I would like basically going out in the weekends and kind of getting some food.

I was very happy the fact that I got my first Nintendo DS in Japan, you know?

I got it in.

What year was this?

It was like 2014, no 2012,

2013-ish, yeah.

Because like you wouldn't get a lot of video games in Romania.

Like, you know, we were talking about like the scarcity of stuff.

Like, fucking never saw a PlayStation until I was like

20 in the UK.

That must have been wild coming from fucking recently freed Iron Curtain to Japan.

Yeah.

Yeah, we didn't get like the Game Boy, the Nintendos, we didn't get them in Romania.

Or the PlayStations, we got these Tetris games, you know?

Oh, yeah.

And I don't know if you know the Tetris was actually, it's a Russian game.

Oh, really?

Yeah, Tetris was developed in Russia.

Yeah, when you win on Tetris, you go to like a Kremlin type thing.

Yeah, there's

this American comedian that has a.

They're all dancing like this.

What his name is?

Something Greenbaum, Bromebaum?

There's an American comedian that has a joke about Harrison Greenbaum?

He's a, I think he's a gay guy, if I'm not mistaken.

Is that the guy?

Not officially.

Okay, okay.

But anyway,

maybe I just automatically assumed that.

I know, yeah.

But I think he does jokes about it.

He's got a teams guy.

He's got got a good joke about, like, yeah, Tetris is a, you know, like, we had

Japanese had Mario, the US had like whatever, and then Russian, they were like, blocks.

You know what I'm talking about?

Mm-hmm.

Blocks.

You know, and what happens?

We take them away if you completely.

Yeah, it's a really good joke.

I'm like, yeah, this is exactly it.

Yeah.

Yeah, so basically we had like Tetris and we played Tetris and stuff.

Reminds me of Kurt Metzger's joke.

Sorry, I should get back to it.

But he goes, Ben and Jerry's is like capitalism.

It's like, oh, look at all the crazy flavors we have.

Because Hagen does German.

What flavors?

Pure vanilla.

Yeah.

Pure vanilla.

Yes, yes.

No chocolate.

That is the flavor.

No.

And then basically, what happened was

So you sat home played video games all day?

No, basically, I would go to like these arcades, right?

Because like the videos there, so I'd go in Japan.

I'd go to the arcades.

I would go to like Kiawara place.

I would go to like Shibuya, you know?

You know, Shibuya, the crossing?

You know, you know, when you hear Japan, you hear about the Shibuya crossing.

Which is like this massive crossing in the middle of the Shibuya train station.

It's like the biggest crossing in the world, the busiest crossing in the world, right?

So maybe you've heard about it, you've seen it.

And then I was always like, fuck, I've only seen this on TV.

I want to go in there and be in there, right?

Yeah.

So I would go every now and then there, and I'd walk around and I'd go to some of the malls.

The Shibuya crossing is just like so, it's so iconic, right?

And then I would just hang around there with my friends and then we'd go to like the Izakayas.

Izakaya is like a drinking place, right?

It's like a fucking, what would would you what do they drink?

What was their yeah so you like you'd have like

different kinds of alcohol like you know you get like sake and you can get like but what we would go for because you know we were a salary man and then we were like relatively you know not we weren't we weren't bathing in money right we were

like the entry-level salary at that time was like I think if you join it was like two hundred thousand yen out of which you get tax so yeah you get like about a thousand two hundred at the end of the month a thousand two hundred dollars at the end of the month right which you had to pay rent which is like seventy thousand sixty hundred and then you got like five hundred for the rest of the you know.

So not $50,000.

No, no, no, no, no.

It's basically $1,200 you'd have in your hand at the end of the month, right?

Out of which, like,

$600 or $700 would go on rent.

So then you got

the rest to stretch, right?

So then this is how the salary meant, like, fresh graduates, like, live, right?

That's a lot of like fresh graduates.

Like 28, 29, right?

This is how, like, this is how Japanese culture works, right?

Society.

And they don't have a lot of, depending on the sales job you are, there's not a lot of commission-based stuff.

I was in the commission-based place, so I did better in the second year.

But the idea was you would go to

Nomi Hodai, and Nomi Hodai is basically all you can drink.

And then you'd go there and you get beer, and it's like Nomi Hodai, sometimes you'd be like a thousand to hundred yen, sometimes be like two to two thousand, and you'd go like three times a month, right?

Which is like you spend 30 bucks, and it's all you can drink.

No, the tabe hodai was all you can drink and all you can eat.

So, for two hours, you go there, and you can

all you can drink, and all you can eat, all you can drink yeah, yep, yep

This works with Japanese people because they're not animals.

Yes, yes, exactly.

So they would always like what would happen is if you had a table full of foreigners, they'd be like fuck.

Can I tell you the two examples where it doesn't work because you don't know cultural?

Yeah.

When I was in Israel in yeshiva

they did two things.

They had an all-you-can-eat Tuesday pizza hut

and you can just keep eating until you get pie by pie, but you have to finish your pie before you get another one.

And we'd starve ourselves for a day eat a whole pie get another slice and then we'd wrap this up right and then subway sandwiches had the free like refills on cups and they

didn't they underestimated what Jews are right right and people would like go home with their cups and come back

people would come out like you go they never sold a large they only sold smalls oh my god and they just like I think they had to do away with the system they were just like they couldn't have they didn't do the market research doesn't make sense it's like these these people have no control yeah it's like they're not they wouldn't even think they're doing anything wrong.

Yeah, it's like

use my cup and then bring it back to the dorms later.

Yeah, that's crazy.

So then you have this system and then whenever they get foreigners, whenever they get foreigners, they'd be like, fuck.

Oh, yeah.

And you would see, because what would happen is they, in order to kind of bypass the fact that foreigners, because you know, foreigners have a higher alcohol tolerance.

Oh.

You know, Japanese people,

you know, like how, have you ever seen like how Japanese people, when they drink, they get super red?

It's because I think they don't have an enzyme that like probably

breaks down alcohol or something of the sorts, right?

That's why the reaction.

So a lot of times they can get drunk faster.

Yeah.

And basically, when I, and so it works to have all you can drink when the person's gonna have free drinks and they're gonna be like, you know, pass out.

Yeah, exactly.

You know,

they're like always on antibiotics.

So they exactly.

So what happens is, like, if you get like a foreigner who's fucking an animal, like, drinks seven beers and is like, yeah, another one, you know?

Get Shane Gillis in there and they'd be like,

we're lost our business.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

You get, you know, that's you get like Shane Gillis in there and it's like, we gotta, we gotta pack it up.

Yeah, Shane and Burch is gonna take over John.

What they would do to kind of get around that is they would stagger the orders.

Oh, yeah.

You know, so they'd like fucking take extra long to get them over.

They would take an extra.

Sorry, it's so busy.

You know, I see my saying, you know, it's very busy.

They did it on purpose for you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you'd have to kind of always like press, there's a button on the table when you, because that's how you get the waiter.

There's a button and they come to your table.

And then you have to fucking smash that button.

Yeah, they would come over and be like, fucking.

So we would do that basically.

That was a big part of the culture, like going to the Tabe Hodais and Nomi Hodais and doing it like in some of the places next to Shibuya, the cross station.

It's like really like a fucking movie, you know?

Did you do that thing with the subway where they shoved you in with the fucking story?

Yeah, but bro, yes.

Wow.

Yes, I got shoved in a couple of times.

It was pretty insane.

Literally, that's one of the things I want to do in Japan.

Yeah, you should definitely do it.

Like, someone's definitely gonna touch your balls.

Wait, by accident, or like, well, it's uh, it's always up for a debate, right?

I'm like, someone's a little bit, that's a cup, bro.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's not a brush, bro.

Yeah, yeah, that's not a brush.

You're like, you're funny, you know?

Yeah, man.

That was one of my first experiences because, you know, like, it's Russia, right?

So everybody's trying to get to work at the same time.

Everybody's trying to get a little bit more sleep.

So what I would do is I'll just go to work earlier, which would make my fucking work day even longer.

Because it gets fucking sweaty, you know?

Yeah.

So you have the Yankee games where it's all packed and then you're like, wait, which is wait, let's go drink.

Exactly, exactly.

And then you're also fucking, you know, you're in a suit.

So you're getting sweaty in in a suit.

And especially when summer season comes and it's like super humid, you're just fucking sweating.

It's...

What is it about people that

you've seen everywhere where it's like, hey, can you move in so I can get on?

Oh, yeah.

And they'll move us up.

And there, they're like, listen, we're just getting on.

We're all going to do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I'm missing work, you know?

Yeah.

How do you get off when you're shoved in like too far off?

I mean, like, people got to get out.

You got to push your way out.

You got to push.

You can't be passive, right?

So like this and this situation, you you know, like Japanese people are very polite.

In this situation, there's no fucks given, you know?

Wow.

Like I'm missing work.

And what happens sometimes, you know, the trains are late.

And even when the trains are late, they give you a note from the train station to say, sorry, we were late.

That's why he's late.

You can get a...

A doctor's note?

Yeah, doctor's note from the train station.

The train station.

The train station, yeah.

It's very.

So you can say he's not lying.

He's not lying.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

He's not lying.

Yeah,

we had some fault.

In New York, they should do that.

Like, sorry, I had to take another train because someone was masturbating and looking at me.

Yeah, and that was a little bit delayed.

It doesn't really happen as much in the trains in Japan, but like

let's get the masturbation.

That's going to be a fun one.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is the nitty-gritty element.

Akihabara, the Electric City, there's a building

where they have four stories.

It's a four-floor building, and all of it is full of porn.

And sex toys and that kind of stuff, right?

So you go, you've got like the Jav, the Japanese adult video models, which is like the sensor porn.

You see these from Japan traditionally.

And they're playing it on screens in the building, you know?

So you go there, you watch porn, you know?

What's it it called?

Yoshi Obiashis, no, it's not that one, it's not that one, but uh, there's uh, it's it's it's insane.

I went there and I was like, uh, I'll go there just to masturbate.

No, I'm joking, but uh, what if

you would go into this building, and I took some of my friends to check it out because it's a pretty cool building, and there would be guys just masturbating in front of the videos, and I'm like, whoa,

is it a

that guy runs like a spazz.

Yeah, yeah, I was like, I thought I was like, Did he take something?

Yeah, it looked like it, but his hands are down.

Wait, wait, wait, so it's not, it's not a porn, it's it, it's Is it like a jerk-off place?

So, no, it's not officially a jerk-off place.

But one guy sometimes will just whip it up.

You remember, like, so you know, like, you ever hear stories from the U.S.

where

back in the day you'd have the block buster and then the curtain thingy?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This building

is just that.

What's in the curtain thingy for a whole floor?

For like five floors.

And then it's also legit?

Or it's only for degenerates who want to do that.

No, but

you don't go to masturbate.

That's not the purpose.

But people will.

The curtain thing is for that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's for that.

Oh, you just go there to masturbate.

Oh, for a lady.

No, you don't go.

You don't do that.

Like,

it's not.

It's frowned upon so you can dig out in front of them.

They stay too far down when he runs.

He's got a style.

So the purpose of the building is to purchase porn and sex toys or outfits or whatever.

And they do screen the porn in the building so you can see what you're buying.

Sure.

But some people will be a little bit enthusiastic.

Well, let me test it.

Yeah, yeah, be like, let me see if

it works for me.

Yeah, yeah.

So then my friends basically walked into a corner and this basically, this Japanese dude was just.

Wow.

Yeah, it's wild.

It's a completion?

Well,

we didn't stay for the rest of the show.

We didn't want to see like

how does this conclude, you know?

Yeah.

We didn't go all the way in.

But it was definitely a fucking wild journey, right?

And but they have places in Japan, like my friend, because we have to do that.

The kids here look so fucking old.

How old are these kids?

I don't know.

I think they're like 14, 12.

Yeah, but they have like mustaches and shit.

They're fucking old.

You get that Suiken racco for when you're four.

You know, you you had it, it puts hair on your chest, on your face, on everywhere.

All right.

It gets the testosterone pumping, right?

Yeah.

So anyway, but basically because I was in Japan for like these kind of places, they have like,

you know, outlets where you can really get all your

frustration out because you build a lot of frustration, right?

So there are a couple of like different places.

One of my mates told me that he went, his Japanese friend, took him to a place where they put like fucking like 20 guys in a room.

Yeah.

and then this is a real place by the way i couldn't believe it when i heard it but they put you in a room it's a dark room and then the the ceiling lights up and the ceiling is a screen it's like a see-through it's a see-through like glass pane right

uh and then what happens is the two girls come out and they take a shit on the glass

and then the guys are like

dude

Yeah, take it all in.

I mean, it's like when you hear a story start and you're like, your mind just naturally goes to to like

where this could go.

Yeah.

And I was like, what do they look, upskirt stuff?

I mean, I didn't even consider.

Yeah.

I would be interested in that.

No, exactly.

Yeah, my friend Ronald.

I'm going to put it onto the

glass plane.

How far above it is you?

I think it's like about two meters above.

It's not like there's space.

So like where this, where this

kind of, yeah.

Do you lay down or you just sit down and look?

No,

you just stand up and look.

And they jerk off to it?

Well, this is what my friend is telling me.

I've never been to this place, but my friend said his Japanese friend is like, let me show you real Japan.

This is in Tokyo?

Is it Tokyo?

Yeah.

I got it.

Yeah,

they've got different sex clubs.

That's real Japan.

Exactly.

This is what I say.

It's like, and this is what this podcast is.

It's not like, oh, in New York, you gotta have pizza soprema.

It's like, no, no, no.

What are the cool bars that everybody knows?

That's what you want to tell people.

And this is what the guy was saying.

It doesn't smell.

You don't feel the smell of the shit.

You just see it.

Yeah, great.

All the benefit, none of the negative.

And it's like some, you know, some people like it.

It's kind of their thing.

But then then I heard about it.

Obviously, if it's working business, yeah, it's working business.

You pay like whatever the fuck it is, and you know, you get in there.

I want to go there so bad.

Yeah, I'll put you in touch with my friend.

Maybe he can hook you up.

Yeah, okay.

Get you in the.

Can you get like a diarrhea room?

Well, I

just like

dealer's choice.

There's definitely different packages.

Yeah.

You know, you can choose what's on the menu.

Wow.

You want to have like

cherries with seeds?

Yeah.

And I suddenly couldn't figure out this.

I want you to have like a a whole fucking jar of olives and swallow the seed, the fucking olive seed.

Yeah, and then I want to see that come out.

Yeah.

Wow.

So there are this kind of, because, you know, like, you know, there's places like...

What is it?

They're just pent up?

I don't know, man.

It's Japan.

It's a lot of frustration.

Where they're just freer.

Like, do you think in America they would do that as well if they were allowed?

Well, I mean, look, there is.

Japanese does have less...

It's, you know, it's considered a bit of a, you know, shy country, but, you know, in every family mart and every convenience store, you have hentai books on the fucking shelf that people

yeah, yeah, exactly that people just go and read you know you've got a guy getting off work and going he's reading the this very visual you know graphic You know sex

you guys know what hentai is right like if not Google it and thank me later.

You know and then they're reading it in the fucking thing.

You know some people reading on the train stuff like of course it's not everybody it's like the one guy

right then but if it's like a part of society.

Yeah, exactly.

But yeah, but it's you will see you know, you go to Japan, you see a guy reading the fucking hentai thing, you know?

It's not.

I like how in Amsterdam they will take kids on class field field trips to the Red Light District

in Copenhagen.

They'll take them to Kristania.

And they're like, we're not embarrassed about this.

This is pretty cool.

Exactly.

I think American culture is a little bit more prude.

It's so much more prude.

And I think, especially like in the Midwest or whatever, a lot of places.

It's gotten to everywhere, too.

If you ask a girl, hey, can I drink drop in front of you?

And she says yes, then you will be

ostracized from society.

Things are going to happen.

Things are going to happen.

Yeah, it's become like

prudish.

But in this situation, like in Japan, the hentais are, they're in the store.

You know, not everybody goes to pick it it up, and sometimes they are considered like you know, you're a pervert if you're doing that, but like they're like, who the fuck are you?

You know?

Because they're such a big city, like a chances of like bumping into that person ever again, it's like, you know.

Oh, good point.

Is there a level of anonymity there?

Because it's such a modern city?

There is, yeah, because it's, you know, it's just like, I think the first thing you kind of experience when you go to Japan, have you been to Japan?

No, I gotta go.

It's just the

overwhelming amount of people.

You know?

I mean, you've been to Hong Kong, right?

It's a lot of motherfuckers, you know?

Yeah.

And yeah, so if you go to Japan at like you know 8 p.m.

7 p.m.

at like Shinjuku station, which is the busiest train station in the world,

you will be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people.

There's like all these people are individuals, they have lives, they have dreams.

Like what the fuck?

Yeah.

So it the fuck fucks a bit of your mind.

I noticed that in like China.

I hate Chinese immigrants.

Not Chinese immigrants, sorry.

Just the tourists.

Just to stop you for a second.

You see those guys with flowers?

They put those on graves here and run.

Yeah, that's for funerals here?

Yeah, funerals, yeah.

I don't know if you've seen them before, but somebody died.

So they're going to celebrate, not celebrate, but they're going to put the

church.

Damn.

Yeah, sorry, carry on.

But Chinese tourists, and they have no sense of personal space.

Why don't you just bump into you?

And then when you finally go there, you're like, oh, right,

that's not a right they're afforded personal space.

There is none, so they don't get used to it.

Whereas we're like, this is my area.

It's a lot of people, man.

It's a lot of people.

And

population density, you don't really think about it.

Like,

if you look around here, look how much space we have, right?

Wide open space.

So if somebody comes right right next to you, you'd be like, what are you doing?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, what the fuck, man?

Well, like, in Japan, this is like, you know, if you walk around, like, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Giza, Ginza, there's a lot of people, you know, there's a lot of motherfuckers.

And, uh, did you fuck it all there?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I had some.

I've got some

interracial relations.

But I had a girlfriend for a long period of time there, like for three years, so I didn't, like, go crazy.

But I had a lot of friends that were like really going into it, right?

Like, my, you know, if you're a white guy in Japan, there is the white privilege thing, right?

You are the exotic element, right?

Wow, that's cool.

You know, so like in that situation,

well, I think it's it's it goes into the direction where, you know, you have a lot of people from these countries where in their countries they can't get laid.

And they go to Japan, and it's like fucking a bonanza, you know?

And there is like some people are not big fans of this because like you're nobody there and now you're here because of the way that the culture is.

You know what we're talking about, even here in Romania, you get a halo effect, right?

Yeah.

The halo effect.

So people will just be like, oh, yeah, this guy's a foreigner, you know?

No, in Shanghai, it's the opposite.

So all these people would go there, especially outside Shanghai, like Wuxi and like Suzhou and stuff, because like you're used to being a pretty woman

and whatever, and like a percentage of people looking at you.

If you're like an eight, right?

You know, you used to be treated like that.

And then you go to like a city like that where there's eight million people, and only about 20,000 of them are really interested in you.

The rest don't even want to look at you.

And so then you're like, am I ugly?

Right, right, right, right.

And they have to like deal with, like, why is nobody hitting on me?

But the thing is, it's also like, you know how uh in in the usa in europe you have like these uh some people have a fetish right like like a like a race fetish or whatever yeah i like pussies yeah yeah exactly uh but in japan as well you know there is it's kind of like a you know a bucketless thing right sometimes you know you can be a bucketlist thing you know you know fuck a white guy one of the reasons i moved to new york is like i want to fuck a black chick there you go and i'm like they're more intermission accomplished and uh and the situation is like you have that as well right so some people kind of like go a bit crazy in that direction because like it takes over like with any any form of like excess, right?

Mm-hmm.

It takes over your life.

And yeah,

there's a lot of stories in that direction as well.

Like, I myself, like I said, I had a girlfriend for like three years when I was there.

And only at the end, like, when we broke up, I kind of like dipped into the pool.

Yeah.

But it is, it is, there is an advantage.

Wow.

And, you know, it would be like.

You don't have to use it, especially as a dude, you never get an advantage.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

You know what I mean?

Like, you experience a situation where you're on Tinder and suddenly you're getting matches every swipe, you know?

Yeah.

I'm like, what the fuck?

Yeah.

Wow, yeah.

Because, like, that's not usually how it goes, right?

So, it is some of that angle, but like, I mean, if you're a trans person and you go to Thailand, you're suddenly like, wow, I'm accepted here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

So, like, it's different, different angles, different cultures, right?

But, um, yeah, then when I was there, basically, uh, to go back to some of the

mastery of things, right?

Like, people, like, we went to this city, and I was like, I was like, where are we going?

It's the city called Utsunomiya, which is, like, I think it's Tokichi or something prefecture, which is like under Fukushima Prefecture.

Okay.

You know that, Fukushima, right?

Yeah, we all know that.

Yeah, exactly.

And

my friend was like, let's go to this city because this is the Gyoza city.

You know, Gyoza dumplings?

Uh-huh.

They're like, everybody in this fucking city makes Gyoza.

This is what they were saying, like, and like, what do you mean, everybody?

This is where they develop mastery for it, right?

Wow.

So it's like super famous for Gyoza.

And I was like, ah, fucking Gyoza.

I mean, I've had Gyoza, what the fuck, right?

And we go to the city and we go to this place, and the line, five hours.

No.

Bro, five hours.

No.

No.

Five hours.

We waited for five hours.

For a dumpling?

For a dumpling.

You're a dork.

And no way.

My friends wanted to do it.

Then I was like, I was like, I was just on my phone.

But like, bro,

best dumplings.

Really?

I don't know if it's because I was so hungry at that point, but these were the best Gyoza dumplings I have ever in my life.

Like, even to this day, I'm like, man, that was a fucking good dumpling.

I still remember it.

Yeah.

And the thing is, this is the crazy thing, is I was expecting they're going to fleece us, you know?

Yeah.

The price was normal.

It was like fucking 800 yen or some shit.

You know, we paid like, I think we ate for like four people.

And at the end, we paid like, I mean, like, in total, like...

2,000 or 3,000 yen, which is like $30.

It's for an amazing thing.

And I was like, what the fuck?

Yeah, anywhere else, they would raise, they would jack that price.

This is it.

You've got demand and supply, right?

Yeah.

Mission burrito in fucking in the, in the, in Haiti or wherever.

I guess the mission burrito.

But this is the thing is.

$20.

This is what I really liked about Japan is they don't do that.

Right.

Because they're like, you know, I am making this.

It's my craft.

Uh-huh.

And I'm making it accessible, you know?

And they want.

This is the right price for this.

Yeah, exactly.

That's why I have $20 tickets to every show.

And I want people to enjoy it, you know?

Because normally, you'd think these guys should fucking, you know, my, my mind.

You can get get more, you're capitalist.

Yeah, my mind is like, fucking, bro, go fucking, you know, start a fucking franchise, you know?

Fucking get these dumplings out there, you know?

And then they couldn't do it.

Then they have to trust someone else to do it, right?

Yes, exactly, because someone's gonna fuck up your shit, right?

So you take such pride in your work.

Yeah.

But have you ever seen like Jiro Dreams of Sushi?

No, I've heard of it.

Bro, it's like, it's like that, you know?

Like, you gotta spend before you can touch the fucking fish, you spend five years just fucking touching the rice.

Wow.

You know, and I'm like, what the fuck?

You know?

So the same thing with this Gyoza situation.

I was like, the Gyoza was so fucking good.

And then these guys are like so down-to-earth, so modest.

Like,

this is what I've dedicated my life to, you know?

And then I live in a modest place.

It's a modest thing, but I have a big line in front.

Because this is like, this is the, you know, everybody's definition of success is different, right?

Yeah.

Like, we're talking about this the other day.

It's like, you know, I'm getting this many subscribers, this many followers, this many views.

I think for them, it's like,

yeah, just like, maybe...

If it's good, people will come.

And I think in a way for them, like, having the huge line is like the thing, you know?

It's like, hey, we're doing this good.

We're doing this good.

Yeah, yeah.

They all want how excited people are.

People are.

Like a street performer when people gather around, it's like, because they're good.

Yeah, exactly.

So they're like, and then they're like, I am not.

They have this respect for the customer.

You know what I mean?

Cool.

Yeah, like, for example, like Japan, I think this is one of the, like, whether it's in ramen, whether it's in Gyoza, and even electronics or like machinery, they have a respect for them.

Yeah, Hondas are the best.

The Toyotas.

This is it.

And I think.

My friend said if you buy a Honda or Toyota, you can just weld the hood shut for five years.

Yeah, and this is the thing is, I think this is the big difference between

capitalist culture, like just Western culture and Japan.

There is a higher degree of respect.

Pride in your craft.

Yeah, pride in your craft.

Like, I think at the moment, like, you know, my fucking iPhone is like, you know, I had it at two years, then slowing down, you know?

You know, like when that thing was, the iPhone was like fucking purposely slowing it down.

Yeah.

It's like, why is it?

And it's because at this point, at the core of it, you don't respect the customer, right?

You just want to fucking get as much money out of them as possible.

Dude, this is what comics do.

We talk about this in terms of comedy, like putting on a show and making sure, like, having good openers.

Yeah, yeah.

And, like, and, like, you can't charge $100

for your show when you're a month out of your special, where you're like, kind of, oh, what else?

It's not fair to this crowd.

It's, yeah, and, you know, they will, because they don't know any better, they will give it a break.

Yeah, they're like, oh, cool, I saw this guy, but it's like, respect them enough to really bring it.

Yeah, this is the thing.

And

I've paid like 60 euro for a ticket, and I'm like, oh, this is an open mic.

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is your microphone.

For music, who's like, are you guys phoning it in?

Get your set list down.

And, you know, the situation is the respect of the customer comes across in every area.

Look at fucking, you know,

I do a lot of better gaming, the Nintendo Switch, right?

Yeah.

Nintendo Switch has been out for like six years now, and it's basically

a tablet from fucking 2016.

And it's like super underpowered.

But then they invested all that time in optimizing games for it.

So you would get more life out of it.

Oh, interesting.

So you wouldn't have to buy another one, you know?

You don't have to buy one.

They want you to keep that one.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Yeah, so they invest a different.

Because there's there's some you know pride in making good things you know make making reliable stuff so this this comes in question of like you see it in the food you see it in the fucking um clothing you know manufacturing from japan and i think that's the biggest difference if you were to there's a little bit more respect right and that's like that's the core of japanese culture respect right and pride and honor and uh yeah you see it man like the fucking guy with the gyoza they fucking good fucking gyoza right because like after a point it's like the bathrooms are all clean yeah exactly Yeah, the bathrooms, man.

The fucking best thing is about one of the best things about Japan is the toilets.

Yeah.

By the way, every time I ask this, it's either, no, the same as always, or horror story.

Yeah.

This is the first time I've gotten like, they're awesome.

No, bro.

I, like, in my office building, they would have the toilets with the sprinkler, you know?

Like, you know, you know the Japanese toilets?

Yeah, the bidet, but like, it's basically

a toilet seat.

Yeah.

And it has, like, a little remote on the side.

Yeah.

And then you can press buttons and you can change the speed of stuff.

I have a joke about it.

And it just shoots water in your butt.

Like, I don't know why we don't have it all over the world.

It's much better.

It feels great.

My friend said this is how you should do it.

Because imagine spilling some Coca-Cola on a table.

Yeah.

And you take a dry cloth and wipe it off.

It's sticky still.

Yeah.

So you take a wet cloth and wipe it off.

That's it.

It's next level, bro.

And

they really put a lot of work into that.

Like, even for girls' toilets,

you can play music from it.

So the person in the next cubicle doesn't hear you pee.

Me and my friend went to Noma.

This restaurant was like the best restaurant in the world.

Yeah.

They just shut down because we can't do this sustainably in Pennsylvania.

This isn't quite right.

Copenhagen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I heard about it.

And then there was an American head chef, not the guy, but and he took us on a tour.

We saw these chefs, because everyone who works there is a chef who's just trying to like, I'm high level, but I want to work for this guy, right?

So I could like,

mastery, yeah, yeah, man.

And they're peeling walnuts, like the outs, the little thin skin on the outside, not the shell.

And I'm like, what are they doing?

They're peeling walnuts.

He goes, why?

Does it taste better?

He goes, no.

I'm like, then what are they doing?

He goes, you don't like to get that shit in your teeth.

Yep, yep, yep.

You have two high-level chefs.

Take the whole day so you don't get a little shit in your teeth.

This is the thing.

Just to play music so that the person next to you doesn't have to hear you fucking fart.

Yeah.

It is like

it's glorious.

That level of respect for your customer and the experience.

Wow.

It's another level, man.

And like I said, like the.

Just to demand that at all my shows, that we have music playing in the stalls.

Yes.

It's definitely a different world and I think the respect for the customers is really like next level.

And

yeah, one of the things that I did like there as well was like the trains are always on time and if the train is not on time, they apologize, you know?

Like one time they had this thing where like the trains,

the trains were like, I think they were late

in total for the year, like 60 seconds.

And they issue out like an apology for everybody, you know?

Wow.

Like we have failed,

you know?

You know what they do with Delta?

They're like, hey, flight's not coming.

Sorry, waited seven hours.

I'm like, are you going to rebook?

It's like, nah.

And yeah, it's, and I think this is.

What was that hiking story you were going to tell you?

Oh, yeah, the hiking story.

Okay, I was going to tell you.

What happened was

sometimes, you know, it's

because you're working so much, and I think this is the thing:

it just takes up so much of your mind space, right?

It's so working all the time, you know, there's pressure, and sometimes, you know, other people kind of organize stuff.

And I'm like, yeah, let's do stuff, right?

So one of my friends is like, you know, Friday night, let's go, we're going to go to Mount Fuji.

And I'm like, oh, cool.

So then I basically, basically uh mount fuji is like two hours and a half away from uh from tokyo uh you take a train then you have to take a small bus right so i was like yeah fuck i'll just get off work and go to mount fuji right so i basically uh i left my uh

my shit at home and i got a small backpack and it's like sneakers and like jeans on and in my mind it didn't fucking process right but mount fuji is 4 000 meters

you know yeah and basically uh

like i completely did not i wasn't wasn't paying attention or whatever the fuck it happen was happening But basically we went there and they're like we're gonna we're gonna climb Mount Fuji I was like yeah, we're gonna you know gonna sleep here and then climb it on Saturday no it's Mount fucking Fuji if you do it there in the day you're gonna you're gonna get sunburned you're gonna fucking get dehydrated you're gonna die so what they do is you if you wanna see the sunset you climb Mount Fuji at night so basically you go there and you start the climb at like midnight and it takes you like five hours to go all the way up to the top right well like so you get there at like 5 p.m.

5 a.m.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Sunrise.

So basically, I've got like fucking, you know, normal shoes on, tennis shoes on.

I've got jeans.

I was like, I'm going to get a snack for the bus ride.

I got like four bananas and a bottle of water in my backpack.

And

no fucking flashlight.

Yeah, midnight island.

In the fucking darkness.

So we're like,

and my dad.

Is it foresty or deserty?

No, it's more like dusty.

Okay.

So like my friend is like, what the fuck?

do you know what the fuck we're doing now

and then like you you don't even have a fucking jacket it's fucking it's the fucking mountain it's 4 000 meters you're gonna fucking freeze uh so then one of my friends basically had like uh for whatever reason because they want to take some photos on top of the mountain with like a giraffe onesie so then i wear the giraffe onesie all the way up yeah yeah and to save yourself yeah yeah and it's like uh you got like different stops different camps you know so then basically we're climbing this motherfucking mountain in the middle of the night and we're going from stop to stop and I'm like it's fucking rubble it's like it's like I got like fucking these are like fixed souls you know I got like fucking like like it's like converse type stuff yeah it was just Japanese shoes are called Onitsuka Tager

yeah but they're like fucking have like the thin souls right and I'm fucking suffering throughout this whole journey like it's darkness I don't know what to fuck I'm putting in my hand only only only the guys in front like we're four people only one guy has a fucking lantern

yeah yeah exactly it's a fucking pitch black darkness, and I'm like, what the fuck am I doing?

But it was great.

Like, we got all the way, it was, it was, it was exhausting.

Like, because the problem with like climbing a mountain is the fucking oxygen goes away, you know?

Yeah.

The more you go up the mountain, the less fucking oxygen you have, and the more difficult it is to yeah, exactly.

We did this in Guatemala, and you're going straight up, and you're like trying to catch your breath, but you just keep getting less oxygen.

Exactly.

So, like, we're running.

I've got like a little water on me.

We get to the and then, like, the odd, and it gets gets tougher and tougher I was gonna like what the f

Am I gotta fucking die on Mount Fuji here and then we get to some of the camps and luckily some of the camps they have like tea and you can pay and you know obviously overpriced and stuff and the camp is like you know like little fucking shit you know yeah you go there and you take a small break and you know just a and I'm like and then people are like what the fuck are you doing yeah

why are you dressed this way you stupid foreigner yeah you malai yeah you fucking you baka gaijin that's what they call yeah yeah baka is stupid and gaijin is foreigner

and then uh yeah it was a fucking it was physically exhausting.

It was like it was just

completely underprepared and you know because you know Mount Fuji is a fucking volcano, right?

Yeah, and then we get to the top of the crater and what do we see at the top of the crater vending machines There's full of fucking vending machines like three four yeah, you know like those Japanese traditional vending machines.

Yeah,

they basically got like four of them up there And I'm like, what the fuck happened?

I don't know how the fuck they got it.

I don't know what the fuck happened, but there were vending machines at the top of Mount Fuji and you could buy like fucking, you know, flying them in?

Yeah, I don't know how they got them.

Maybe they flew them in.

And, you know, obviously they're like, you know, it's like fucking

$8 for like a fucking can or whatever.

I was on the Great Wall of China.

Yeah.

And it was already got the price.

I've already told me because

Turner and Andy brought me out there.

They're like, this is the price of water.

They'll try to charge you this because you're white, but this is the price.

Just tell him.

I'm like, no, no.

Yeah.

And let's say it was $100, whatever.

And as soon as you get up there, they're like, $600.

I'm like, no, no, it's $100.

And he goes, not when you have to lug it up all the way to the top of the fucking wall.

and you're like, All right, fair.

It's uh, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's it's because it's you know, what are you gonna drink?

Yeah, you're gonna drink your own piss,

yeah, you're welcome to do it.

So, that was one of the crazy stories that I was like, what the fuck?

And then, uh, wow, how was the sunrise?

It was great, man.

It was great.

I think I have some photos.

I'll try to dig them up.

It was like fucking 2015, 2014.

I think they were on Facebook or something.

Okay, but it was wild.

It was definitely wild.

It was one of the intense experiences.

And I'll tell you one more

because basically I was working in the corporate environment, right?

I was working with a lot of.

It's very male-dominated, right?

Japan, let's get this out there.

Japan is a very sexist society, right?

Like women are not treated very well, right?

And it's mostly men at the top.

And men in banks are also like...

Today's rule, two drill.

Yeah, and men in banks are also a different layer.

Let me give you an example.

I met one of my clients.

And you got to do this client meetings.

You got to play the game.

Because you're working for...

You got to entertain the clients, right?

And of what?

You got to entertain the clients.

If you want to get business and deals,

there's a lot of men kind of entertaining for clients, right?

So you got to take them to get shit on.

You got to take them to drink.

You got to take them to

host bars.

You got to take them to, and host bars is like where the girl comes down, sits to you.

You know, there's the hostess clubs.

Or in Japan, there's hostess clubs where basically men, they go there.

It's not like a strip club.

You go there, and then the girl comes and talks to you, and you pay her.

To flirt with you.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And she's like, yes, you know, you're such a strong man.

But like, this is what Japanese people do, right?

I like that idea.

Yeah, and you go there.

You get some some fucking respect for an hour, that's all I want, exactly.

Yeah, they talk to you, they listen to you.

Yeah, it's kind of like a they don't tell you what chores to do, yeah.

It's a weird, uh, it's kind of like a it's kind of like a therapy thing, you know, but it's a different format for it, right?

Yeah, so you take them and then you come there, and then you, you know, you they pour drinks for you, that kind of stuff, nothing sexual, nothing, nothing, nothing happens, yeah.

Uh, but they kind of like it's it's this weird emotional kind of like brothel, you know,

where there's no touching, there's nothing, anything, but then like you dress hot, yeah, yeah, yeah, of of course, yeah.

They've got, like, everyone's wearing suits and like, uh, like, dresses, you know?

Uh-huh.

And, like, you know, like, they have like previous stuff.

And it's a very weird.

Like I said, it's like an emotional brothel.

You know what I mean?

Oh.

Oh, that's interesting.

But there's no physicality whatsoever.

They sit to you, they pour stuff for you, and you know, there's everybody's limiting their stuff.

And you talk to them, and they're like, how was it work?

Damn, that's interesting.

That's really cool.

I mean, that's definitely something that you don't see anywhere else, I think, the hostess thing.

Yeah.

And, you know, there's also maid cafes, but that's more like a commercial thing where people dress little girls dress as maids and the treatment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, so then this we take them to these hostess clubs, and then my boss would like

this fat there, but I think it's it might be from

I have no idea, could be, but there's a lot of foreigners coming around here, yeah.

We just saw like uh American fat people,

yeah,

um, but basically, uh, one of my uh one of my bosses this one time took me to uh Kabukicho, and Kabukicho is kind of like the red light district.

And then he told me, like, this is where you can, you know, if you have a tough client, you take him here.

And it took me to like this very, like, the guy, if you're, because at that time I was working with clients that are like super Japanese.

Super Japanese.

They're like very senior, like 60-year-olds, 65-year-olds.

I was like 25, 26.

And then this is where you take them.

And they took me like basically a Kabuki show.

Not another traditional kabuki show, but more of an underground one.

Because basically, it's kind of like a strip club because the girls get naked, but

there's no pole and there's no throwing money, you know?

What do they do?

Just walk around.

So what happens is,

we went to this place, and it was a very dingy place, because you go downstairs, and they don't have a liquor license.

So if you want to drink something, you got to go upstairs to the vending machine.

You got to buy something and you go down, right?

You get booze at a vending machine?

Some of them, yeah, but in this situation, they're not allowed to.

Basically, this is the thing.

They don't sell alcohol at this place.

So you're not allowed to bring alcohol in.

it's disrespectful.

And then basically, they put the teacher in the room, and it's kind of like a little theater.

It's like doing a room at the fringe, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then the girls come on the stage, they're dressed in different stuff, and they slowly take stuff off.

And then the table is basically like a rotating table, it's like a rotating top.

And then the end of the performance, they get naked and they sit on the table, spread it out, and then the thing rotates.

So, like, they sit on the table and they spread the legs, and you can see the and so you just like wait and see.

And when they spread the legs, everybody starts clapping

wild.

And then there's a guy at the side throwing confetti.

And like, I was like, what the fuck?

Like, we did it, we saw that pose.

Yeah, yeah.

And then, like, she puts another pose, and everybody's like, woo!

And it's very respectful.

It's very respectful.

And at the end,

like, five guys from the audience gave the performer a bouquet of flowers

because it's a performance, right?

It's like it's a nude performance, but it's a performance.

It's more like

and if you want to if you want to do something extra, the only thing you can do extra is you can take a Polaroid with her

and they charge you like

yeah,

and they charge like a hundred

thousand yen for the Polaroid, which is like ten bucks.

Okay,

yeah,

and

when it rotates around so where you can see the puss, like do you just kind of like like stare into it?

They definitely gaze.

No touching?

No, they won't you do not allow touch.

There's no touching.

But

you just go like, you know, you go eye to eye with the pink eye.

You get right in there.

Yeah, it's like you can't, like, this is the table.

You don't fucking barry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like volleyball.

Yeah, exactly.

So you don't go beyond it.

But that was very interesting.

And I never took a client there because I was like, this is...

It's a risk.

Maybe it's not there, but it seems like a risk.

Like, if you're not in the business,

you're very upset.

Yeah, exactly.

It's like, it's not, I don't think, like, yeah, I mean, the thing is, like, my boss would be working with a lot of investment bankers.

Yeah.

And then, you know, sometimes

they would be more rowdy.

Because, like, the amount of deals that they would be doing, they'd be like, you know, half a million, you know, like, there'd be like a lot of money on the table, you know?

So, like, a lot of times there's, you know, things, they go the extra level, you know, because they know, like, for example, they know that you want the deal.

So they'll milk you.

They'll milk you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then they're fucking degenerates as well.

And things kind of escalate, right?

Yeah.

So then I was dealing with like a more

toned-down part of the bank.

I was dealing with the legal compliance part.

But one of my bosses was dealing with the front office, the traders, the fucking

Coke top out of their head.

They want it.

It's part of the job to do Coke, you know, because you got to be on all the time.

So things would escalate.

So you tell me some crazy stories, but I never went that.

Like, this is the craziest thing I saw from that direction.

Because like, yeah, this is where I take my clients.

Yeah.

And I was like, damn, man, this is fucking.

But this is like, this is like

a part of Japan that you will not normally see, you know?

It's like it's like what the fuck, you know, this is wild.

I want to go to one of those, too.

Yeah.

Kabuki?

Kabuki Cho, yeah.

Kabuki Cho?

Kabuki Cho, yeah.

What's Cho?

I think it's just like a neighborhood.

Oh, okay.

Because it's

the definer.

But

yeah, it's in Shinjuku.

It's where?

Shinjuku is one of the neighborhoods.

So like the more popular neighborhoods are like Shibuya and Shinjuku.

I've heard Shibuya.

Yeah, and then Shinjuku is like the biggest train station.

It's a lot of commercial stuff.

And also the red light stuff, right?

Like where they do, and you know, that's where they have like the

like one of my friends basically went a bit off the.

I have a scavenger hunt going on.

Sorry.

I just keep seeing people stare at underneath these chairs.

Ah, maybe there is.

You're seeing like multiple people doing it.

Maybe.

You know what happens?

What?

I saw a woman doing it.

I don't think that this is the.

I don't think this is doing it.

But I think what happens is.

I'm looking for something specific.

I'll tell you what happens.

Sometimes what happens, because it's illegal to get drugs here, people get it off the

the the dark web.

Yeah, and one of the strategies that they used to use is there's no you know you pay the you pay the guys in Bitcoin like whatever and then they basically have a drop-off point and the drop-off point is they tape it under a bench.

Oh, so they're trying to intercept it?

Yeah, so I think this is what's happening.

Wow, yeah, because basically I saw a woman doing it over there.

Yeah, it just looked like she was like had lost something.

She's looking for a cell phone.

Yeah, and I think basically a lot of times what happens is a foreigner comes in and they do that.

That chick's looking too over there.

Yeah.

I think this is maybe Maybe they have like regular check-ins.

But, you know, like, for example, if you're ordering, you know, Coke or if you're ordering something, they put it under their thing.

And, you know, and a lot of, what's the, what's the easiest place to fucking find it?

Like the point of reference.

Oh, yeah.

So maybe it's that, maybe it's something else, but this is just, you know, some guess speculation.

It's a fun speculation.

It's a fun speculation.

Yeah, we're guessing.

She's looking for something for sure.

Yeah.

Because look, they're fucking looking at the bush, right?

Like, why would they be looking at what the fuck did you do?

They're talking.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, so I think that might happen.

Because I think they're trying to crack down down on stuff.

Every now and then, like, you know, the

anti-narcotics or whatever.

They're trying to crack down on stuff.

Okay, let's wrap this up.

Yeah.

We're in the middle of a story?

I forget.

Yeah, I was talking about the tabuki show.

I kind of wrapped it up, basically.

It's kind of like Yoda and they're very respectful, booking out the flowers, showing you the JJ and that kind of stuff, right?

JJ, yeah.

So I got two questions.

First of all, everybody follow him on what do you get mostly?

Instagram?

Yeah, Instagram.

Dragosh Comedy is where I'm at, D-Ra-G-O-S Comedy.

D-R-A-G-O-S.

Yeah.

And it's pronounced shragos.

Yeah.

Dragos.

The Dracula stand-up.

That's what I'm doing.

Yes.

I saw a comment on a picture we posted that you're Europe's best comedian.

I mean, I'm definitely active in Europe.

It sure helped that the UK left.

Yeah, yeah.

You guys all leveled up.

I mean, bro, I'm taking advantage of it.

There's every car out there.

You're like, oh, nice.

European unions.

Yeah.

And I guess it's a lot more coming up now, but I guess, you know, it's a lot more difficult to do English comedy when it's your second language and there's not a lot of of stage time because people feel you know Berlin has the biggest stage time in in Europe you know yeah if you take out the UK yeah and they did so then yeah it's kind of growing growing it's it's been growing on Instagram my my tick tock is like where I initially started Ireland but they don't count somehow because they're blocked yeah

but uh my tick tock was like the one that kind of blew up initially yeah and then that kind of started getting a bit I started doing some China jokes and now I'm fucking in the dumps

what yeah I had a joke about like one of my friends was studying political science and then she did a year in China so I did a joke about like oh did did they change your whole degree to political silence?

Yeah.

And then fucking, I put that up, and then the fucking algorithm started punishing me.

No way.

Yeah, and I, you know, maybe all the other jokes and clips I've uploaded afterwards are shit.

That's also a possibility.

Oh, dude, when you see it, it's like, what?

But, but.

Because you spoke out against China.

Maybe there's an algorithm.

Maybe there's an algorithm there.

And they're like, eh, that, that, that.

Maybe I'm also just like

paranoid.

But like, I don't know.

What are you on TikTok?

It's all the same situation.

Dragon's coming.

Yeah.

Damn.

You can feel it.

It didn't just go down 10%.

It went down 90%.

Bro, it went from 200,000

TikToks.

I was getting like 200,000 a clip down to like 8,000.

Wow.

I'm like, wait a minute.

This smells like shadow banning.

Yeah.

You know, this doesn't

come out of the blue.

Okay, well.

Follow him.

He's a fucking hilarious comic.

He puts up great stand-up clips all the time.

So this is something I ask everybody, and so there's no right answer here, but like, so you've been, I mean, you've lived in Singapore, Japan, you've been all over especially for comedy you've been to Moldova and all these places in Malta Do you have any travel tips?

I mean the best one like that it comes to mind doesn't have to be the best.

Yeah, let's let me

what one thing like Danny Brand was like travel light.

I'm like oh, okay.

Yeah,

I mean I if I would say like get a like for me a big travel hack was like get a backpack with wheels Oh, like because the thing is so like you you saw like I've got like a suitcase.

Yeah.

And then I got a backpack with wheels.

You You can strap it and then take it because the thing is, like, you're you know,

technically, you got two suitcases, but then it doesn't fuck up your bag.

Uh, like, the problem is when I'm carrying a lot of stuff on my back, I used to have like a very heavy backpack and fuck up my back, yeah, but then I found out that the suitcase, the rolling backpack, is almost as big as a suitcase.

But if they ask you at the airport, it can be like, no, this is a backpack, and then you strap it on, yeah, yeah, strap it on, that's not bad, and then basically, I just fucking put it in the top or put it under the thing, you fucking shove it under the thing, but you get like kick at it, yeah, you get like

double the space.

You did tell me that you were happy when you were traveling that you would not get a data plan because it helped.

Yeah, man, that was a fucking like when I started doing

comedy full-time, I just wanted to be really immersed in it.

And the problem is the phone now, it takes up everything.

And for a year, a year of traveling around Europe, I did like almost 70 cities, no data.

And it gets you in a little bit, but the thing is, why it's so important is because you got a plan.

You got a plan.

When you leave the fucking hostel hotel room you need to have a plan you know i'm going here so i know kind of what exactly you got to download the the fucking uh offline map on google and you gotta have like it helps you like get a fucking structure plan i heard you're just gonna interrupt yourself you're like it gets you into predicaments whatever you're gonna say yeah but to me like those predicaments is the joy of travel yeah yeah

yeah it's it's not nothing bad happened or anything but sometimes you're like fuck i don't i something takes you a little longer to get somewhere yeah yeah yeah like i took a wrong turn and i gotta fucking figure out and stuff but like the best thing is like, you don't just leave the

Wi-Fi area without a plan.

Great.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So now you gotta like move in with direction.

I gotta sit down and I gotta figure out what am I doing, you know?

Yeah.

And I'm not just gonna, like, I like wandering aimlessly as well.

But then, like, when you have, we don't have like Google Maps working or the data or whatever stuff, you gotta have a plan.

Yeah.

And it's great.

What I'll do is I'll like, I'll like be a little more observant of massive landmarks.

This tower is like, okay, that's center.

So no matter where I am, if I can spot that tower, I know how to get back.

Or really, the sun.

So I'm like, hey, I know at dinner, it's going to be in four hours.

I want to get to the northwestern part of the city.

And I'm like, all right, the sun.

All right.

Just kind of like get that direction.

So wander all over, but then that'll help you get back.

Right.

And you're just more aware.

The Empire State Building's a big one.

Yeah, so that's the kind of thing.

Like, I think in smaller cities, like, for example, like a place like fucking Brussels, it's fucking chaotic all over the place.

How are you going to

do the same, too?

But yeah,

it's just very freeing not to have to look at your phone all the time.

It really is.

And I got data back on now because I need it for a lot of the communications and stuff.

But it was a good time.

You just get the

different way of experience in the city.

It's like you're looking around, you're paying more attention.

You're more present in the moment, you know?

All right, buddy.

Man, thanks a lot for having me honest.

I hope you enjoy.

Yeah, let's get Book Arest and see you back again in Romania next time, Yash.

All right, yeah, for sure.

Yeah, next time, yeah.

Well,

guys, that's the episode.

I hope you enjoyed it.

God, that was fun.

We had a blast, guys.

There was a time.

Make sure to check out Dragos wherever Dragos Comedy.com.

Check out his special, the Shenzhen special on YouTube right now.

He's a very funny comic.

And Berlin Comic is kind of leading the Berlin comedy scene, which is one of the burgeoning scenes

in Europe.

It's like pretty much, from what I see, Amsterdam and Berlin are like the top two scenes.

And Berlin is like worldly everywhere.

And then, and then Amsterdam has like the clubs.

And just the local scene is like

the Amsterdamian, whatever, what are they called?

What is a local Amsterdam called?

A stroop waffle.

The stroop waffles shows are really kicking all the time.

Don't forget to see Dragos.

You get tickets at DragosComedy.com.

May 10th, New York.

May 9th and 12th is sold out.

May 13th, Philadelphia.

Chicago, May 16th.

Toronto, May 19th.

The 20th is sold out.

May 21st in Montreal.

7 p.m.

show sold out.

9 o'clock show

added.

And you want to see him on Facebook and Instagram.

He's got a great TikTok that recently got,

well, he shouldn't have made fun of one country that delivers us with

formerly our good fentanyl and now our bad fentanyl.

He made one joke about them and got a hella taken down.

But really good TikTok if you're on there.

And that's it.

Today's episode was edited by Alan Caffey, produced by your mom's house

network.

Chad

was the one looking at pictures and putting those in.

So we were flying from Cluj to Romate, to Bucharest.

Spino.

I mean, I will do a whole episode about Romania for sure, because I learned so much.

And

this didn't come up in the episode because we recorded before.

But

but

we went to the bathroom.

We were like in the checked in to the gate.

And then we went to the bathroom.

Oh, you know what I'll do?

I'm going to pause this second.

Went to the bathroom and

some dude's smoking in there in the airport bathroom in through security.

Just smoking in the stall a cigarette.

That's Romania.

That's Romania.

And we were like, what?

Do I smell bigger smoking?

I'm like, yeah, I do.

Like, what?

And then he was in there, just smoking.

And then we were like, kind of looked...

That's right.

We looked away when he came out, like, I'm embarrassed.

And the guy, like, saw us, he knew what we were laughing at.

And he was like, what?

I got to smoke.

I was so great.

Oh, man, Dragos.

Oh, what a good time we had.

And then he left, and I stayed for another week or so in Bucharest.

I kind of did my own thing.

But what an interesting country and what a gassy food.

Anyway, this episode's not about Romania.

It's about Japan.

I'll be back to Japan in more places than just Tokyo when Che Dorena

finally has his special out.

And that'll be, I don't know, whenever.

Probably in the next two, three months.

So make sure to check in for that one too.

Next week.

The innumerable Tim Dylan, the one and only, Timmy D, come on to talk about London.

And he has his own take on it.

And that's exactly what I'm talking about.

Way, way different than

Danny Brown's grime core

tales of London.

Tim's is way more about the high-level Illuminati.

Okay, before I go on today's episode, I'd like to read you guys some postcards.

I get these postcards from around the world.

I haven't mentioned one in a while.

I don't know.

Do I have them?

I do.

But you guys have been sending me postcards for my travels, and I love it.

Vietnam.

Oh, hell yes.

Wow, with the Vietnamese.

Look, it says Nam.

Ben, come up here.

Come up.

Come here.

Come here.

Yo, come here.

Come here.

I've been inspired by your travel story since you had on Henry Rollins on Skeptic Tank.

Finally, in my mid-30s, I'm getting out there.

Just spent a month in Vietnam and a week in Cambodia.

Damn.

Just wanted to say, just wanted to thank you, brother, Aaron Gifford.

Instagram.

Well, I'm not going to tell you, Instagram.

You can send these postcards to 151 First Avenue, New York, New York.

Wait, 151 First Avenue, number 49, New York, New York, 10003.

Got them?

Look at that.

Fucking Vietnamese stamps.

Pretty cool.

Yeah, that's the address.

We got the whole thing there.

Pretty fucking cool.

Postcard from Vietnam.

Nice, buddy.

Don't nobody saw me trip there.

I don't think I saw those

markets on the water.

God, those look good.

That Henry Rollins episode, too, was so good at Skeptic Tank.

I know I keep saying this, but I gotta go down and take down all the old Skeptic Tanks, and I just never have.

That was for me.

Harbor Maine.

I think

some of these are money that I gotta put up.

Gotta be, right?

Gotta be

all right.

Well, this is too fucking difficult.

Should have thought this out before.

I had post-cards.

There we go.

Yep, got one.

Dear

Dewey to Ari, I don't know.

Love the show and all you bring and all you do to bring a positive attitude and change of perspective to Americans.

I'll take that.

I do a lot to change perspective to Americans.

Tell them to stop claiming Irish heritage.

We don't care.

Yeah, bro, great point.

All these fucking whites,

especially the white Irish here in America

that really are American, bitching about fucking.

Oh, we're on team this.

We're on team that.

We're on team.

Oh, Sheng.

Team Palestine.

Dude, you're fucking...

You live in a country that has bombed fucking 60 countries since you've been alive.

Get fucked.

We don't care.

This is my original art.

A night out in Ireland.

Love Lorna.

Wow.

Well, we should show the original art.

Not bad.

Look, check it out.

We got fucking

Irish stamps.

Pretty cool.

151 First Avenue, number 49, New York, New York, 10003.

This probably is

$50 Canadian.

Some of this is probably money.

I bet it is.

I'm also still filling up that wall.

I got our new

backdrop that you'll be seeing.

Not the Tim Dylan episode, but something else.

We did it.

We got it.

We got it.

Postcard.

Okay.

Whoa.

Mong Ning.

That's Vietnam.

Vietnamese money.

Another Vietnam.

Hi, Ari.

My husband and I love the new podcast, the only one brought to you by Traveler's Diarrhea.

Not bad.

That's a decent joke.

Listening to your stories about Myanmar reinforced our desire to visit.

So we crossed that off our list in 2018.

Nice.

You probably went right after me.

As I write this, we are currently on the

Hagyang Loop.

Ooh, what the fuck is that?

We look forward to seeing you in April in Vancouver.

Well, you've already did.

Kate and Steve

Perry.

Keep on tripping.

November 11th, 2024.

You'll be tripping podcasts.

Care of Ari Shafir, 151 First Avenue, New York, New York, 10003.

And they sent me this postcard that I will hang up and some Vietnamese money that I will put on the wall over the guests shoulder.

I'm gonna.

Oh,

wait.

Two of them.

Two bills.

Wow, is that

Uncle Ho?

It looks like it.

God, Vietnam ruled.

It fucking ruled.

Check it out.

I got some fucking bills here.

Not bad.

Alright, guys, well, that's the episode.

I'll be doing more of these.

Let's keep these fresh.

Ha Gyeong, Vietnam.

Ha

Gyang, Vietnam.

You know what?

Hey, Siri.

What is Ha Gyeong Vietnam?

Ha Gyang Loop.

Four-day road trip.

Oh, wow, that's pretty cool.

High in the north of Vietnam is a place

where the road winds through the jaw-dropping canyons and breathtaking mountain passes.

The Ha Gyang Loop, a dream come true for adventurers,

travelers craving the open road.

Wow, so it's not a hike, it's a drive.

Pack your gear, charge your batteries, and prepare for adventure.

The four-day route follows.

That's a four-day road trip on a, on a, damn,

this is what I want to do with Paul Morrissey when we went fucking motorcycles and got up there.

The Vietnamese border.

Damn.

Oh, I got to get to this.

Ha Gyang Roop.

Thank you, guys.

Fucking Kate and Steve Perry.

Good note.

I got to get there.

I'm going to add it to my list.

The Hagyang Loop.

Fucking road trip by yourself.

Kind of like the...

In Australia.

Adelaide, Great Ocean Road.

Guys, that's the episode.

Please subscribe wherever you're watching or listening.

Go get yourself some merch from my merch store.

And I'll see you next week.

I'm Tip Dylan.

Oh, Motsubesk for tuning in.

No, wait.

We did

it from Romania.

We did Japan.

Don't you love these locations?

They're cool, right?

They're legitimately cool.

You can get yourself there.

You couldn't do it in the town square because of the rain, and you gotta like face the sun the way I'm doing now, and you're gonna go blind.

Um,

but man,

anyway,

um,

yeah, what's your bus?

Goodbye.