Venture Step

Dalton Anderson (00:01.47)
Welcome to VentureStep podcast where we discuss entrepreneurship, industry trends and the occasion book review.

Have you ever dreamt of just picking up your life and moving somewhere completely new? I'm sure we all have. And I'm not moving, but I'm temporarily staying in Japan and.

Dalton Anderson (00:23.314)
Seoul in South Korea. So I am staying in Tokyo and in Seoul in South Korea. And so there is some changes that you need and I figured this would be a cool episode to talk about. And just to discuss like the different culture that I've had since settling in, I've only been here for a couple of days now, three days or something, but I've been out and about the whole time. So definitely don't know everything.

but there are some things I have observed that might be useful to share. I also was going to talk about, so now that you're here in a foreign country, like what are some things that you should probably put together to make things a bit easier for yourself? And I've done this twice now. So the first time I lived in Mexico city, Mexico for one month in January. And so this is my second time. So I learned some lessons from last time.

and some some to do's and don'ts. Mexico City is a little bit, I would say, not dangerous, but I think you have to be more cautious on what you're doing. But I wouldn't describe I wouldn't subscribe to the idea that Mexico City is like inherently dangerous as long as you're not doing stupid stuff. mean, Japan can be dangerous, New York City can be dangerous. Anywhere can be dangerous if you're not if you're doing things that you shouldn't be doing.

especially in a place that you don't know the language, you're not familiar with the laws. So you really wanna stay within a box, you know? So, okay. That being said, that's what I'm gonna talk about today. And of course, before we dive in, I'm your host, Dalton Anderson. I've got a bit of a mix of background in programming, data science, and insurance. Offline, you can find me running, but in my side business, or lost in a good book. You can listen to the podcasts in both video and audio format, if that's your thing, on YouTube.

Audio is more your thing. You can find the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or of course, YouTube or wherever else you get your podcasts. OK, so I haven't been here that long, obviously. So I got here on Thursday last week and today is Tuesday. My time for you, if you're listening to this in the US, it'd be Monday at night, almost almost late. And so I am in a bit of a rush to get this episode out because I

Dalton Anderson (02:52.25)
I was supposed to do it yesterday, but I was jet lagged and my body was like broken from pick up soccer. did some pick up soccer and pick up volleyball all in the same day. And I did that because I signed up for them and they were waitlisted. So I didn't necessarily know that I was going to be able to play soccer because I actually play soccer. And so I signed up for soccer and I was waitlisted and I was like, like I was like third on the waitlist. So I was like, like.

I'm just going to apply to something else and I'll do that instead. Like no big deal. And then it ended up happening that that morning of. I was. Told that I was playing soccer, too, and you can't really cancel the day of the event because. It is not cool because the guy or like the signer or the host or however you want to phrase it. That person.

assigns the teams to make sure they're all balanced. So they have a genuine effort of, OK, like, what's your skill level here? You're new. I want to make sure the teams are balanced. You explain it and then they balance out the teams like hand select each person for each team with different characteristics to make sure that the games are competitive. And so if you. Just leave the day off of an event a couple hours before.

It's definitely frowned upon and not cool. So I didn't want to leave that first impression. So I wanted up playing like four hours, yeah, four hours or four and a half hours of volleyball, taking an hour train ride and then playing futsal, not futsal, indoor soccer on top of this mall. That's like seven stories overlooking the city. Super beautiful. You could see Mount Fuji. You could see the city.

Incredible. I've never experienced anything like that in my life. And I got to meet all these random people. It was it was an amazing experience. And I'll go into more detail about that later. But the main point of this conversation right now, this train of thought was. My body was absolutely wrecked and then I was jet lagged. So I was almost. I was just almost like a vegetable yesterday, and I didn't really leave my bed until.

Dalton Anderson (05:13.418)
later, later that night to get to get dinner and my dinner became my lunch and lunch and dinner. So I just ate an incredible amount and went from there and then went to bed. So, OK, so when I initially traveled here, it's it's a 16 and a half hour flight from where I live in the U .S. I live in Florida. So that's pretty far. And I don't think there's any way around it.

The flight is devastating. I've never been on, I think the longest flight I've ever been on is maybe five hours, five and a half hours or something like that. And so my headphones are broken. I had a book to read that I could read, but there's only so much reading and sleeping I can accomplish in 16 hours. And then you get here and

There is there is like.

Dalton Anderson (06:19.274)
You get basically you're in like the future because you're 13 hours ahead and then you were traveling for 16 and a half hours. So you're just you're just like in a different world. Basically you leave it. You leave it in the morning the day before and you get there. What two days later in the afternoon. Right. I left, left Thursday. I got to Japan.

Friday, like 2 p 3 p And then it took me an hour to get to my place. But I mean, just the travel trek is just like crazy, crazy insane. The amount of weight you have to do with your seat. I want to get a massage here because the first couple of days was sore. I wasn't even sore from exercising. I was just sore from sitting.

So that flight was crazy. Then you get there and where I'm living right now, I'm living in a place called Shinjuku. So Shinjuku is a like a hip district with

Dalton Anderson (07:38.634)
younger people, bars, clubs, things like that. And then they also have like a red light district, which I don't really, I'm not going to go to, but the idea behind being in Shinjuku was okay, like since they have a lot of nighttime activities, I'll be able to do stuff at night all the time where they'll have a lot of things open and restaurants will be open. Like a lot of them might be 24 seven or pretty much all night.

because I have one week off and then I'm one week on. So I'm off this week and then next week I am going to be working Eastern time. So I'll be working at night. And so when I need to do stuff, I'll need to do it in like the middle of the night if I need to go out and get lunch or do whatever. Workout, it's going to be in the middle of the night. So that was my thought process. I don't know.

I don't know how useful it's going to be. Who knows? I haven't had to really utilize those time those time frames yet. So I haven't stayed up that late either. I think the latest I've stayed up is eleven. Out and going out and about. So not much traveling there, but I did have in insane trouble defining my place like I messaged my host like the day of. So, hey, I'm traveling.

I'll be there like the next day at this time. She's like, OK, cool. And then I get I land. like, hey, I just touched down. I'm going to be making my commute over to the place. Like, you know, please be available if I have any issues. She's like, yeah, of course. And then I get there an hour and a half later and I'm messaging her like, hey, I can't find the place. It's the address isn't working. And then she doesn't message me. And then I keep searching for like another 40 minutes and doesn't I message her again.

And I'm like, hey, like I really need help here. Like I'm stuck. I don't know where to go. And then I kept searching. And then after another like 30 minutes, I was like, hey, I need something to go out here. I've got nothing. And I need help. Like I seriously need help. Like I can't find the place that I paid for. And she didn't respond. So I was in between just booking another place for the night.

Dalton Anderson (10:01.826)
and figuring out in the morning because I was traveling with three suitcases because I'm here for a month. So I have all my work stuff. I have all my personal stuff, my podcast equipment. Like there's a whole bunch of stuff. I basically moved here with like minimal amount of clothes, but brought all of my work stuff and all my podcast stuff with me. And so the bags are pretty heavy. And so I'm going up and down the hills and in stairs like these train stations.

don't have stair or they don't have escalators for the most part for going up. They have escalators going down. The bigger stations, they have escalators going up and down, but the smaller stations not so much. So I had to do everything like holding two suitcases, go up the flights of stairs. it's pretty steep. It might be like 80 stairs. It's almost like a stadium.

And then I have to go back down and get my other suitcase, bring it all the way up. And yeah, I to do that all the time. And then once you get there to the place that you're going to, I couldn't find it. And I was searching about and I had to just roll them all around and go up the hills and down the hills and go through alleyways and stuff. And you got to think about it like the streets in the train station are packed like it's not like I don't know.

if there's a good way to picture it, but you got to think about it like when I was taking the train with these suitcases, it's like shoulder to shoulder deep in in the train. So I'm trying to like push all these people to get my stuff in because there's nowhere to put your suitcase. There's a place to put your bag, but it doesn't fit suitcases. And so if I my suitcase up there, it would fall. The commuter trains that come in from the airport.

they have a spot for your suitcases, but the normal passenger trains, they don't have spots for your suitcase. So I'm. Packed into this this transportation device, the train, and I'm shoulder to shoulder with all these people, and I'm trying to figure out like where to go. I don't have an e -sim yet, so my Internet is like really slow. And so I'm struggling to even like.

Dalton Anderson (12:21.47)
to hold up Google Maps or like to look at things on the map. My host isn't responding and I get off the train. I find the spot that I think I'm supposed to go to and it's nowhere to be found. And then that's when I started messaging my host. After that, I searched for like two and a half hours and then I kept messaging my host like, hey, like I can't find the place. And then at a certain point I was like, I might have gotten scammed here.

Like this could be a fatal event here. You you go across the world and it's almost 20 hours away from where you live and the place that you paid for isn't available because it doesn't exist or something like that. I was like, I guess they got me, you know, I'll figure it out. But it wasn't the case.

Well, my host never responded. So the way that I narrowed it down was I knew that there was a 7 -Eleven near the place because it had a photo of a 7 -Eleven nearby. And so I knew that there's a 7 -Eleven. And that's pretty much it. So there's a lot of 7 -Elevens in Japan. There's literally like a 7 -Eleven on every block. It's like family. I think it's called Family Store or 7 -Eleven or like the two main spots.

Dalton Anderson (13:47.658)
So what I did was I searched for 7 -Eleven on the street that I'm on, which is Chrome 2. And then I just went from 7 -Eleven to 7 -Eleven. And I was like, wow, there's a lot of 7 -Elevens here. And Chrome 2 is a massive road. So I was having trouble there. And then I was looking through the listing and the message she sent me. And there's this Google link. And this Google link had a small screenshot or photo of the building. I could only see.

maybe 25 % of the building I was living in or I'm going to live in. And then I could see like maybe 35 % of like three other buildings that are nearby. And it looked like it was on an alleyway. So I narrowed it that down. And so I found the places that I needed to go to on the Google maps. I was like, okay, like this might be it. This might be it. And I was like looking at the angle of the photos, like see like the different buildings and there's only one photo, but I was talking about

angle of the photos on the listing. And eventually I found the building that I'm staying in, but it took me forever and I was worried I got scammed. So that was my first impression of Japan. And it was very difficult because I didn't have I didn't have good internet access or Wi -Fi puck. So that was my initial impression. And I was like, my goodness, this is brutal. I finally get here. It's pretty cool. It's small, obviously. It's Japan.

Tokyo like it's going to be packed.

It's got good wall AC, can't see what's right there. It's got some good lighting. It's got a small shower and toilet.

Dalton Anderson (15:29.406)
But then I check in, I check into my place. It's late. It took me an hour train ride or an hour a half train ride from the airport to where I'm where I'm at. And then it took me another like three hours to get my place. So I got here like late, like maybe eight, nine. So I wanted to stay in, but I was like, it's my first night. I have to make an appearance. And so I went and got some ramen at this place.

And this is like the first thing that I noticed was the guy was like telling me in Japanese, I don't know Japanese, so I don't really know what's going on. But basically he's like, dude, like you can't, you can't sit here. And I didn't understand. And then, I just, I just observed like the other people coming in. And so that the, a lot of these ramen shops, they have these vending machines. And so you put in your money and a lot of them are cash only. And so you have to get your, your yen.

So you get your Japanese yen and you just put in your money and you select what you want and it pops out a ticket and you provide that ticket to like the assistant and the assistant will ask you some questions like, okay, like how do you want your noodles? Like do you want them normal, soft, hard or do you want your noodles to be like rich, like normal or something else? Like there's a whole bunch of, like I think there's typically like three questions. Sometimes they're just asking nothing.

And then sometimes they'll ask you like how you want your noodles. Do you want them cold, cold, hot, normal, whatever thickness of your noodles? How do you want them to be flavored? All sorts of things. Then once you answer that stuff to the assistant, the assistant hands the ticket over to the cook and then the cook cooks it obviously. But they won't, they won't let you sit down until you go to the vending machine. I didn't know that. So that was like a shock. I was like, okay, that's, that's actually pretty sick. So I,

look through everything on the vending machine, put in my money, pops out this ticket and then I'm good to go. And they'll they'll basically tell you where to sit by once you get your ticket out. Like they'll look at you like they'll stare at you until you get your ticket. A lot of places because they know you're about to order. And so they want to give you like good service. And also, I think I just take forever and they want to make sure I don't mess up because I'm obviously not Japanese. And so I could be affecting their business because like, OK,

Dalton Anderson (17:58.43)
people might see that there's people at the vending machine, because there's typically only one. I've only seen one. I haven't been anywhere where it has multiple vending machines. Or actually I have. I've been to one where it has two.

But I might be holding them up because people might see that it's busy and they'll just go to a different shop because there's plenty of ramen. So maybe that might be it. But I think the main thing is I just want to make sure I don't mess up and cause issues with for myself or them. So you order, you get your food, then you leave. That was pretty cool. I. Love the ramen, the ramen was insanely good, a bit salty. I don't know how we would

consume that consistently. The food, I would say, is insanely good. I think out of many places that you go to that are hyped up from others, like Italy, Japan, wherever, Tokyo, I think, lives up to the hype with being super clean. For the amount of people that live here, think it's close to 40 million people live in

Tokyo, the amount of people that live here, the city is so clean and they don't have any issues really with with trash and things, the street smelling. They have a whole bunch of alleyway, alleyways that are, I guess, streets, but not really streets. Like if you have a small car, you can drive on this alleyway. But if your car is like a normal size car that you would see, like in the US or something like that, because they have normal size cars here as well.

If it's not a smaller car, then you can't, it's too, it's too narrow for a normal car to drive on. And you can't drive very fast. can only drive like 20 miles an hour. But basically they're, like walking, running and biking trails. And a lot of utility bikes use those. A utility bike is like a food delivery service where they'll put the food on the bike and then they'll drive about like on their scooter.

Dalton Anderson (20:08.468)
But I'm saying this because there's this whole network of alleyways in Japan, Tokyo, and it's super clean, very clean.

Dalton Anderson (20:21.426)
And there's no really like litter like people don't litter here. Like from what I've served, like there's there's nothing like that. And trash is a big deal here. Like the culture of like taking care of your trash and and making sure that you don't throw your trash away in like places you're not supposed to. Like when I was playing soccer, I got a meal before and I was eating it and I was like, hey, like, where do I put this? Because like there's no trash cans. And he's like, you really can't throw this out here.

Like it's going to smell and you, there's not really a place for you at the mall to throw it out. Like you have to throw it out your house or like you have to, you know, go X, Y, Z and they'll accept it. And like trash is like a big deal. Like they take it really serious. And if I were to throw it out, somewhere where I wasn't supposed to, they would not necessarily contact me, but they're definitely contact the guy, the host and

he would get in trouble and find and potentially lose his privileges of being able to rent out that space. So I didn't want that and he didn't want that obviously. So he kind of explained, he explained to me like why it's such a big deal.

The public transportation in Tokyo is insane. And maybe if you're from New York or like some bigger city, you're like, well, you know, it's got to have great transportation and it's got to be efficient. I don't have that experience like my life experience. I've never really like lived in a big city and the. The best motor, like the most, I guess the best.

train transportation I've had is a place back down south and southern Florida called the Tri -Wheel System. And it's a train transportation partnership between three different counties. And then these counties have a train line that runs in parallel. So there isn't like multiple cross sections of train lines. There's not like a blue or red.

Dalton Anderson (22:29.222)
a purple, a pink line, like there's just one line and it goes up and it goes down and that's it.

And so it's very simple and it goes from West Palm Beach to Miami. And it takes like an hour and a half or something to get from West Palm Beach to Miami, something like that. And it costs it costs, it costs like nothing to go. It's like nine bucks. And so that's what I used all the time when I didn't have a car. So I would have my bike and my train. And so I would

take the train with my bike, store my bike somewhere, get off the train, bike somewhere, and either like do some soccer refereeing or something like that in college. That's really what I did. But that's my experience with trains. So I'm not really, I'm not coming from New York City or anything like that. So I have read that the train system in Tokyo is world class. And from my experience of spending,

in these last, what, couple days, I've probably spent, one, two, three, probably like six hours on the train. I've been doing a lot of train riding. So I've been going like different places and doing different things on the train and trying to utilize the train as much as possible.

insanely insanely insanely good train like train or transportation via train. It is always on time. I've never had it delayed. The signage and like what to do is pretty straightforward and I'm not very experienced with these things. So if I can do it, I'm sure other people that with more experience can do it just fine.

Dalton Anderson (24:18.93)
It's definitely nowhere near as confusing as Mexico City. Mexico City, the Mexicans in Mexico City didn't even understand like the bus system and the train system. They're like, brother, I don't know. Like, it's hard for me. I can't really explain it to you because there wasn't there wasn't a lot of documentation of like what things were, where they were, how things are going, which bus lines are going down, what routes. And there was a general consensus that

the buses were better. had an in in intercircuit and an outer circuit bus, bus route that would that had a lot of lines, but the lines in between were very blurred. So you didn't really know other than the inner circuit and the outer circuit. You didn't know. So that's that's where they're typically that's where the Mexicans would take the train or not the train, the bus. They would take like a bike, a bike sharing service. I think in Mexico City was city bike as well. And so it's city bike.

which is similar to New York City. think New York City has a partnership with City. City bike, you take the city bike, you bike to your place, the train, you drop or you have to bike it to a drop off spot, bike to that drop off spot. And then from there, go and take the bus. And the inner circuit and the outer circuit, they connect at certain points, but they're mostly separate and they're just circuits that can that run constantly.

Dalton Anderson (25:45.106)
Okay, so I say that because Tokyo's train system is super easy to navigate, very quick, efficient, very clean. It's packed, but people are respectful. Like no one is playing music without headphones. If you're playing headphones and the music's leaking, you're supposed to turn it down. People aren't going on there, like being absurd and obnoxious. Everyone keeps to themselves, even though it's packed.

It seems like everyone is very respectful and kind. Like when I was going out of the train, my my baggage fell like because a certain certain train stations, like when you get off the train, there's like these bump things like they're they're very divided, maybe like half an inch or something like that. And my wheels got stuck in my suitcase wheels, got stuck in the the bumps when I was coming off the train and all my stuff fell.

It didn't fall out of my bag or anything, but two of my suitcases fell. like, no joke, like 30 people were like, like already on it. Like my suitcase was up before I could like do it myself. And yeah, it was just super nice. And so. Train the train stations and the bus, the bus transportation, all that is. Insanely good. Although I've.

I've been on the train for Washington DC. I've been on the train for New York City. I've done the tri rail. I've done some stuff in Miami.

Mexico City, you know, I feel about that. New York City, I think, is pretty decent, but aging infrastructure, especially after Hurricane Sandy, it's definitely affected their efficiency for certain certain tunnels. And I think that they are going to make some corrections with the Gateway program, which is like 20 billion dollar infrastructure investment program to connect the Northeast Corridor, which is pretty interesting project. If if you guys look into it, I quite liked it. And.

Dalton Anderson (27:51.856)
Then Miami is Miami. Like it's just it's not that good. And then the tri rail is decent enough, but it's definitely not something on the scale of Mexico City or Japan, obviously, because it's just a parallel, a linear train train station with just stations along one axis.

Dalton Anderson (28:17.332)
So the train station's good. The public transit station is excellent. The people are really nice, friendly. One thing that was kind of a culture shock, and I said everyone is super respectful and all that. And I think that you hear these kind of things when you're talking from a USA citizen or maybe a citizen of Europe or United States of America or something like that.

You might, you might hear that.

Dalton Anderson (28:52.868)
Like the Japanese people are less, maybe less expressive, but I think it depends on the social environment. So on the train station, everyone keeps themselves super respectful. Like no one makes any sound. Like you're in the train station and no joke, there's like thousands of people there and it's not very loud. Like I could, I could say something and people would hear me. Like I could just talk normal and people will able to hear me. It's not very loud. It's very quiet and peaceful.

The loudest things are the trains, obviously, but you're not really hearing people talk to other people. You're you're just. And if they are talking to each other like they're whispering, so you can't really hear them and they're just being super respectful. But I did play pickup soccer and pick up volleyball for, you know, what? Six and a half hours or something like that, seven hours. And from my experience,

The people are very expressive in their emotions and stuff like that. So I don't know. I can't really say now, but I do think that that stereotype probably doesn't live up to expectations.

Dalton Anderson (30:09.662)
People really like to share their food and culture from these last couple of days. Like everyone is super helpful, like trying to get me to eat some food or try new things and like give suggestions. I've had some insane, insanely good like food in the last couple of days. Some of the best food I've ever had for them, and especially, especially best food I've ever had for the money, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. The language barrier is quite tough.

Because when I lived in Mexico City for a month, I was able to read the language and I kind of know where I'm at. And in Japan, I can't read Japanese at all. And I don't know any Japanese. In Mexico City, I knew Spanish up to maybe like a seven year old or something like that. So I could ask for things. I could do things or ask for advice or whatever. But in Japan, I got nothing. So I have complete reliance on Google Translate.

And sometimes since Japan is, or sorry, Tokyo is a melting pot of Asian countries and just people in general, not just Asian countries, but everywhere across the world. But for the most part, like if you go to a shop, they'll know Japanese, but there's sometimes like, maybe you're at a Thai restaurant, but the people you're talking to are from Thailand. They don't know Japanese or.

or somewhere else. And so then there's like a language, like a massive language barrier, because I don't know Japanese and they don't know Japanese. I don't know their language. They don't know English. So it's really difficult. It's really difficult for those situations that's happened to a couple of times. And I'm like, I don't know what to do here. Sorry.

Dalton Anderson (32:00.232)
The food, I think the food customs are pretty straightforward. think, you know, typically you would chopsticks and you would, I would say.

Dalton Anderson (32:19.614)
when you're drinking the soup and the noodles and stuff, like you make you make you make sound like when you're doing it, like you're supposed to like slurp up the noodles like in the US, you're not really supposed to do that. Like people find that rude. Like if you if you took your spoon and you slurped up the spoon, you know, like people are going to be like, that's annoying. But in Japan, like you're supposed to do that. Or I don't know if it's seen as not respectful because I am American. And obviously, I don't look Japanese. So they might

not see as disrespectful. They just might see like, you don't know. whatever. But I do know that that like that's part of the culture is like you're supposed to do that. And so when I'm eating the soup, I try to like slurp up the noodles. It's quite hard sometimes because the noodles are like sometimes heavy and thick. I'm like, I feel like I'm a vacuum sometimes is quite hard on some of them.

I'm getting used to it because you got to chopstick it and then you kind of have like a long noodle like a whole bunch of long noodles and then you just like suck them all up and then you obviously consume them and swallow them. But yeah, I think that's like the biggest thing I've seen. And obviously you don't put your same thing in the US is you don't put your elbows on the table.

for one thing that I did find interesting is you don't

put your jacket on your on your chair or anything like that or at the table. Like there's a special jacket spot that you put your jacket. And that might be true in the US for like higher in restaurants and stuff where you have a place where you put your jacket and then you come back and you get your jacket. In Japan, pretty much every place you go to like just a hole in the wall or nice restaurant that have a spot for your jacket that you have to put your jacket on. Like it's not acceptable to just have your jacket.

Dalton Anderson (34:13.232)
out and about. And then the next thing is if you come in with a bag in a restaurant, they'll make you put it in a basket. I don't know why, but that's just like the culture. And I would like to ask, but it's difficult because I don't know Japanese and. I'll ask at pickup soccer. Some of the people at pickup soccer know English, so I'll ask them. But for the most part, the basket thing was quite intriguing because

I had my bag in there and they're like, yeah, you need to like put it in the basket. And I was like, OK. And you put it in the basket right next to you. So maybe it's like so it doesn't slip or so you don't forget it or. Not sure. Another thing is like when you're when you're handing to handing stuff to people, you want to hand it to them with two hands. if you're and if you're receiving stuff. So if you're handing someone your credit card, you need to pull it out.

two hands, hand it to them. And if you're getting it back, you, you hold it with two hands. If you don't do that, I don't think they're going to be upset with you because obviously you're not Japanese. So they, they're like, you don't know. But like that's what they are now you're supposed to do that. And they teach you that like in business school, like with cards and stuff, like you get it with two hands, but that's how you receive and get the receipts and cards. Like when you're giving a card or receiving a card,

from someone like a credit card, you do those things.

Dalton Anderson (35:49.13)
Another cool thing I thought was a lot of the places they have. They have a lot of these shops that make all this food, and at the end of the night they will discount everything. So I was part of like a discounting hunt, like a BOGO hunt or like a like a discount crowd or something like that. I don't know what to call it, but it was like 1130 at night at this store, like a grocery store. And there was like a crowd of like 15 people.

And I was like, they might be doing something. for the most part, what I'm doing is I'm just like walking around the city, just doing things like taking the train places. And then I kind of just people follow. Like if there's a lot of people going somewhere, I'll just follow the crowd and see what's up. Like they must be trying to do something interesting if they're all going one place. So this crowd I followed and I observed. And yes, so they are waiting for the person to put out the discount on these items. And then the item was given the discount.

And once the item was completed, like with the discount, they would decide if they wanted it or not. And they would just wait in there. Once the people found an item that was discounted, then they would.

go and pick it up, obviously. But it was quite a few of us. And so we all waited. I thought it was pretty funny and cool at the same time. And I think that there's a culture in Japan for food to be really fresh. And so I think if they don't have it that day, they won't eat it. If it's not made that day, then it's not good, especially with seafood and stuff like that. A lot of places, they'll kill the food. At a nicer restaurant, they'll kill the food sometimes in front of you.

to make sure like, okay, this is fresh or they'll bring out something for you to look and like, okay, this is the fish I want and like, that's the fish you get.

Dalton Anderson (37:39.028)
But I thought that was pretty cool. They also have like receipts and stuff for your convenience source. And a lot of people don't keep their receipts because you got to think about it. I said earlier, there's not trash cans about. So on the public streets, like they're they're not trash cans spread spread around. You're only really getting trash thrown away if like you're at a restaurant or somewhere like that. And so.

The receipt, typically from my experience and my observations, especially at a convenience store, aren't kept. And so there's a special spot where the receipt, like on your side, the receipt, you go in and the receipt comes out and then you just, you take it off and then you drop it in like this receipt bin, like right underneath the receipt, receiver or printer. And it's like a little plastic receipt bin that you put your receipt in.

So I thought that was pretty interesting. I think there's one more thing that I wanted to bring up that I thought was interesting. yeah. So when you go to a grocery store or if you go to a some of the convenience stores, I think they're really busy. They'll have it. But typically, no. But definitely a grocery store, they have it. You buy your items, you get your items and then you go to the register.

And then they inspect your items, right? And then they ring them up. But you don't pay there. I think this is incredibly efficient, by the way. So you don't pay there. You pay it like a pay kiosk. So you ring up your items and then they say, OK, like you pay over here. And so you walk over to this kiosk and then you pay and then you leave.

Instead, like in the US, they have people ringing up the items, ringing up the items, and then you pay why the person's ringing up the items, but why you're paying the people behind you can't get their items rung up. So in Japan's way of doing things, you're ringing up your items. As soon as your items are rung up, you're good to go. They send you to another kiosk, and so while you're paying, that 45, 50 seconds while you're paying, they're ringing up someone else.

Dalton Anderson (40:03.434)
It's the only time that they're waiting and not ringing up anyone is when...

All the kiosks are filled.

I thought that was quite the... How do I say?

Quite the experience, was like, wow, this is really cool. This is so much more efficient than the way that we do things in the US.

Dalton Anderson (40:32.468)
Hmm.

Okay, so I am going to talk about things that I think would make things easier. And so in the

In the US, you obviously have your internet service, your phone service, whatever. In Tokyo, same thing. But there is some popularity of these things called Wi -Fi pucks. And you can get a Wi -Fi puck. You could rent a Wi -Fi puck for a bit. And you could do like a week, two weeks, whatever.

But the issue with that is it's quite expensive. Like it's.

like $16 a day or something like that from the ones I looked at. So there might be ones that are cheaper. I looked at the airport and then like a different place like outside the airport and it was like 16 bucks a day, which is really expensive when you put that in perspective because you could eat like a really good meal. Like that's a really good meal. I feel like for $16 is a good meal. So you're basically spending a good meal per day.

Dalton Anderson (41:42.41)
on that because you can eat lunch for like three bucks, two bucks, depending on what you're eating. And then if you want to have a nice dinner, you could spend like $16 on your food. So there's the Wi -Fi puck. And then there's this other alternative called an eSIM. And an eSIM is how it sounds. It's an electronic.

SIM card. And so you don't need, I'm looking over away from my computer because I'm kind of pulling up this, the app I have. Okay. So you don't need, you don't need a SIM and then you don't need a new number. So typically you would get a SIM card and that SIM card would have a new number attached to it. And then that new number is attached to that SIM card. So you put in that SIM card, your other number doesn't work and

You have to switch back and forth. And if you lose the other SIM card, then you're going to be in trouble. And there's just a whole bunch of issues. So I am using a eSIM company called Airlotta. I think I'm saying that. my gosh. OK. Airlow.

So I'm using Airlow as the eSIM provider. I think there's another one that starts with a U, UBO, something like that. And then there's this other one that starts with Sally. It's an S and starts with Sally. And so Sally is from NordVPN. And I like NordVPN because NordVPN is pretty good and super seamless and great overall high speeds, reasonable price. It's more expensive than the other providers, but it provides a lot more.

So I like NordVPN and I'm using it not right now, but I use it pretty often, especially when I want to stream, not stream. I want to video stream like, OK, I want to watch a show on Netflix or something like that because Netflix is different in Japan than it is in the US. And it's definitely different in Mexico City. And you'll get different things like you wouldn't be able to do certain things on websites you're trying to shop on. Like if you want to shop on a certain website, they might be region locked. And so you can't.

Dalton Anderson (44:02.684)
see certain items or see the website at all. So VPN is super easy to just put together for yourself. And it makes it.

easier to navigate the world when you're outside of the world that you live in. So I use Arlo Arleto. my gosh.

Dalton Anderson (44:26.318)
I you I did a lot of research. just, the name. Arilo, Arilo. So I did research on Arilo, the UBM product and the Sally product. And Sally is the NordVPN product. And Sally is a product that is I guess decent but.

Dalton Anderson (44:56.01)
I think it has issues with their customer service. Their app isn't that good. Their speeds are lower than UBG and RBL. my gosh, I keep messing up this name. UBG and Arleto. Arleto and UBG are like the best ones. And Sally is pretty new. It's part of NordVPN. They just launched it not too long ago.

UBG and Arlil are been on the market for a bit. And you can get a lot more things with those products and they're faster and they allow for country roaming versus only staying in one country. Sally, the product is assigned by country and so it doesn't allow country roaming, which is important if you're in Europe or if you're traveling to different places, you'll have to pay again for a new SIM. So every country you travel to, it's a new SIM.

with UBG and Arli though, Arilo, they allow for country roaming and that's what you would want if you potentially would be traveling. If not, you could use Sally, Sally, sorry, Sally, I've been saying Sally. Sally, you can use Sally, sorry.

If you

want to stay in one country. SALE is more expensive than UEG and Arlillo. So keep that in mind. If you really like NordVPN products, then use that. If you don't use the other providers, they are better and they allow more options and more flexibility on things you can do. They're a little bit more seamless in the integration. And that's why I selected the vendor that I selected.

Dalton Anderson (46:49.066)
For me, Xaeli was off of even the list. Even the list. And so then I have an eSim, so I set that up, I purchased 10 gigs. And then the next thing I did is I got a VPN. And so I got a VPN and I just re -enabled my VPN with NordVPN and NordVPN is decent. There's another one that's cheaper. I just suggest NordVPN because...

NordVPN has got a long history of being very secure. It is a little bit more expensive than other people, I would say. But with that expense, it comes with, you know, a long track record of performing the services and also rendering those services with high level privacy. I'm not really that concerned about the privacy thing.

but there's a big emphasis like on these other ones that are have some like shady backing where really is it really VPN or is it really like a spying service? I don't know. NordVPN is definitely a good provider, I would say. So if you want one, would, I would use NordVPN for my research. And so this is two things I've set up for myself to make my life a little bit easier.

And we'll leave it at that. so what my plans are to do is I'm going to live in Tokyo for another like week and a half. And I won't say anything about my experience. And then I'm going to do an another episode about. My first impressions, like first couple of days of Korea and see how my impression of Tokyo and Korea have changed over the last couple of weeks that I've been here.

So I'm going to do a reflection episode. This is more of like an intro. Hey, I'm in Tokyo, Japan. This is how I'm feeling about it right now. I think the city is amazing. It's super cool. It's very clean. The people are very generous. Awesome. Fun, fun place to be. It's mentally stimulating, overwhelming at times. I sometimes when I came home, I would just take a cold shower, close my eyes and just.

Dalton Anderson (49:08.7)
and just let my mind rest because there's so much stuff going on. You can do anything at any hour, pretty much. Your options are unlimited, really, of things that you can do and when you can do it. There's constantly events going on like there's like you could do anything that you want. And so you have to really figure out what you want to do because you might have a decision paralysis.

Okay, well, of course, if you listened in today, know, you know what happens next. So have a good evening. Good afternoon. Good morning. Wherever you are in this world, I appreciate you listening to this episode and hope that you listen in next week. Next week, I wanted to discuss. I want to discuss either the reflection 70 billion parameter model.

Or I wanted to talk about my review -ish or such opinions on Insta360 and GoPro. And so those are the two topics that I might talk about. And hopefully you find them interesting. So I'll talk to you next week. Bye.