I love YouTube.
When you can’t travel for real, there’s always a YouTuber who has travelled the journey you want to go on so you can travel in the comfort of your own home – an in your PJs.
I stumbled upon the channel called Kuga Travel where he travels on trains.
He doesn’t speak in these videos but there are some amusing subtitles. It’s quite relaxing for watch his travels on trains visiting different cities around Japan but also other parts of the world.
He buys cheap tickets but also very expensive tickets to see how luxurious travel can be too.
As I watch his videos, I see how easy travelling by train is. I also marvel at the cleanliness of the trains but also how food seems to be found from vending machines everywhere. In some way, these videos prepare us for the time (hopefully in near future), for the actual real life travel.
As I’ve been watching a lot of Japanese YouTubers, also reading many Japanese novels (translated into English of course) this year, it goes without saying that I’m also watching some channels on Japanese food. These whet my appetite so much so that yesterday, I visited an Asian grocery (which I’ve never been into) and came home with some delicacies that even surprised Andrew.
He wondered what had gotten into me with my obsession of anything Japanese.
My next goal is to visit a Japanese restaurant nearby. We have a suburb here where every second store is a Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese or Japanese restaurant or dumpling place. During lunchtime, it seems that they’re all full of Asian University students. I’m going to head there and enjoy a hot bowl of ramen or soba noodles just like what I see on YouTube. If I can find a dessert like Cotton Cake, I’ll have that too!
Once again, if I can’t visit the actual country, I’m finding that these experiences of reading, watching, listening, visiting and shopping their foods and culture are the next best thing.
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