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Hi there friends! This series came to mind when I first realized I wanted to make videos.
But it took me an excruciating four years to make this happen.
If it wasn’t for VMP-Auto, who I’d like to thank for backing this little adventure,
if it wasn’t for Denis Goyman who provided his cameras,
LCM, who lent me their drone,
and if it wasn’t for the support from our sponsors – Autospot, Veterok club and 1XBet
– this series would’ve never even been produced.
We were able to make it happen after all, despite some technical difficulties,
I mean, I can’t seem to avoid them...
For example you will be seeing a few glitches throughout the first episode,
due to us losing all our material from day one and having to restore it afterwards.
We weren’t able to recover everything, unfortunately.
This is only relevant when it comes to the first episode,
footage from episode two will be glitch-free, unlike the sound.
We have our GoPro 5 to thank for that, since it doesn’t seem to be compatible with my stabilizer.
As a result you will be hearing a droning noise in a few places.
I’ve been doing my best to remedy this issue, but I couldn’t get rid of it completely.
Anyway, enough about our technical difficulties,
what matters is that we had a truly awesome and interesting trip.
Hopefully you’ll enjoy it as much as we did.
In the words of a certain well-known dude –
welcome and join us in this journey of discovery. Let’s get started!
- Hey there guys! You’re watching “head and head” - Two heads, yep.
- Today we find out how to survive in Tokyo with 100 dollars. - For the two of us.
Yep. In truth, our situation is quite different.
Thankfully, this isn’t “heads or tails”, you’ve tuned in to BMIRussian.
However, we are indeed flying to Tokyo, to find out what Japanese car culture is all about.
- Alright, people, “just” nine hours and we are in Tokyo.
While we board the “Dreamliner”, aka the Boeing 787,
I’d like to extend a big thanks to Julia and other people working for S7 Airlines,
for getting us good seats and access to the airport’s business lounge, all for free,
f course. For anybody who’s interested, here’s a short review
of our flight with Japan Airlines in coach.
It isn’t comfortable sleeping, only because the seats don’t recline far enough,
otherwise everything was great.
Zero issues with ventilation and lavatories, food and drinks are top-notch,
plus they have a variety of decent alcoholic beverages,
a reasonable amount of which is included in the price of the ticket.
A nice multimedia system is available, even offering a choice of films in Russian.
Let’s not forget about that nifty automatic window tint.
Anyway, this long flight wasn’t an ordeal by any means.
After a short night, at 10:00 AM local time we landed at the Tokyo Narita Airport.
Ok, comrades, we’ve made it through the last 9 hours,
and right now me and Victor Mikhailovich, together with another traveler
who tagged along with us in the luggage compartment,
and who happens to be paying for everything
– we’ve all made it to the Narita airport in Japan,
now we go through customs, hopefully with no issues,
and after that we end up in Tokyo.
We spent quite a bit of time at the airport, due to us sorting out our tourist JR passes.
Anyway, it was too early to go to the hotel, since registration in
Japanese hotels begins after about two o’clock in the afternoon.
We decided to leave or belongings there and take a short stroll.
After all, we are staying pretty much in the center of Tokyo, in Shimbashi.
Ok, so my thoughts after spending about half an hour in Tokyo.
First of all, it’s really clean. No bottles to be seen, no wrappers, no nothing.
No cigarette butts either.
Since we’re on the subject:
Japan is a paradise for non-smokers,
given the fact that smoking on the streets is prohibited in Japan.
Nobody around is smoking.
There are designated areas for smoking, where you can light up.
Plus you have the curious combination
of skyscrapers and lots of trees.
My next impression is that it s really quiet around here.
For some reason traffic is muted and doesn’t bother you at all.
Which is cool. I almost forgot to mention –
Tokyo even smells different.
It may sound amusing, but I’m telling you.
When you go down the smaller streets – you pick up a lot of different scents,
but no exhaust gases or trash among them.
- Most importantly you shouldn’t go onto...
- Yes, it’s critical not to go onto...
- Streets with Chinese cafes.
- Yeah, the Chinese cafes. We went by and they are quite poignant.
I myself am not a fan of Asian food, Chinese especially,
but... This is just... It’s unbearable.
As for our meals, in the meantime we’re keeping it simple.
We had a couple of burgers at a local fast-food joint,
while Victor tried out a nice looking but almost completely tasteless beverage.
Then we visited a store to grab something to drink...
\- Check it out, heterosexual tea. - Yep.
After that we headed on over to our hotel to check in.
This is a pretty typical room in an average priced Japanese hotel.
It’s quite cramped, but you get all the amenities.
A TV, a fridge, a vault,
a pretty large bed,
over there you have an alarm clock plus lighting controls, next to the bed.
Here we have an air conditioner,
and the favorite gimmick of every tourist visiting Japan –
a fully electronic can.
We’ll figure out how to use the damned thing later.
A sink, and a pretty substantial shower cabin. Yo!
We live on the eighth floor. I wanted to open the window and show you what’s beneath us,
but you can’t do that. Apparently it’s for preventing suicides.
This is the widest you can open the window.
That’s pretty much the entire view from up here.
And now we get on with our first proper walk around Tokyo.
- Victor Mikhailovich has bought himself a bunch of weird sh*t.
- You aren’t gonna get anything with that attitude.
- What the hell is that? - From the looks of it, these are rice cakes with marmalade.
- He’s going to eat it now. Go for it dude.
- I ain’t sharing with you.
- I thought this was churchkhela, but it doesn’t look like it.
- Well? What do you think?
- These are sweet red beans.
- You can have it.
Right, so basically it’s just a sweet snack, but it’s pretty doughy. I’m not a fan.
- This is actually a rice cake, so it’s made from rice dough.
With some red beans on top.
- Anyway, so you tried some food, and I’d like to try a drink.
- This is mighty tasty!
It’s some sort of milk product, like a milkshake. It’s very similar.
- Exactly, you could very much be right.
- It’s actually delicious.
I approve, get some of this.
So yeah, we’ll be paying pretty close attention to the strange Local foods and beverages,
since everything is so unusual in Japan in this regard when compared to Europe.
You have no idea what you’re buying and what you’re going to feel on your tongue.
Meanwhile we’ve made it to our first attraction.
- So our first destination today s the famous electronic district Akihabara.
Judging by the amount of people living here...
It seems like we picked a good place to stay, since our neighborhood is nice and quiet,
it’s actually just a couple of subway stations away from here.
But here there’s quite a bit more people around.
Here’s what’s up.
Akihabara in fact doesn’t consist solely of electronic stores.
FYI – prices in various spots can vary almost threefold for the same device.
So you’ll have to do some searching.
There’s also a bunch of awesome cars driving around here.
No, we didn’t go to Roppongi, which is the prime location
when it comes to these things, but nonetheless. What you see here is just a small fraction.
Also there is a bunch of anime-themed stores around here.
With Japanese girls of various degree of attractiveness
and varied amount of clothing luring you in.
Some of them look just as a certain song goes –
mini-skirt with a cut-out in front, and also in the back.
We decided to visit one of these stores and do some undercover filming.
- Well this is interesting. Some girls up for sale,
those must be phone numbers at the bottom. Let’s go.
The “air” naturally escalates as you go upstairs.
The first floor showcases what can be read by anybody.
The second floor is a tad more serious, it’s all about love, romance and stuff like that.
The third floor contains soft erotica. We made it to the fourth floor.
- What the f**k...
Yeah, you should definitely buy it.
Sorry for not really revealing anything, this is YouTube after all, and children can be watching.
Believe me when I say it’s pretty hardcore.
- The fifth floor’s probably all about some brutal sex or something.
Now this is far out. Titties.
Yep, this is definitely beyond us.
After Akihabara we decided to visit another famous place, right next to the subway.
- Victor Mikhailovich is surprising me with his knowledge of Asian culture. What’s this?
- Behind me you can see AKB48, it’s a well-known Akihabara band,
consisting of 48 singers. They also have a café and a souvenir shop.
- Do all 48 of them still perform?
Look how many there are... - The band actually fell apart...
Here’s where Victor is wrong.
The band is alive and well, and the amount of participants is just mind-boggling.
Our very own Mirage, Laskovyi May and Strelki have nothing on them.
Google it in your apare time. Anyway, today’s final destination is known
all around the world, partly due to Hachiko’s statue.
However, car nuts know it thanks to this...
- Oh sh*t dude, so many people...
Right, guys, now we try making our way through Shibuya.
See if it’s any fun or not.
The square next to Shibuya station,
which was reconstructed for the third installment of the “Fast and Furious” franchise,
is renowned as the world’s busiest intersection, and for good reason.
And it’s Friday evening, so everything is flashy, noisy, in other words –
this is Tokyo as everyone imagines it to be.
We’re probably a bit too tired to give it a proper assessment.
- As quiet as it was in our “hood”,
as it were, it’s just as noisy here.
Apparently it’s a lot of fun, but we’re just a bit tired,
I mean, we’re pretty sleep deprived, so...
Yeah, we’ve checked out Shibuya, walked around the place a bit,
and now it’s time to head back to our hotel.
Tomorrow we’re going to Ebisu early in the morning, or “EbIsu”,
as mister Kosharnyi calls it.
There you have it.
#eveninggatheringwithvalera
- Victor Mikhailovich is trying to figure out how to open a Japanese Kettle...
You’ve almost got it! Yeah, we outwitted the thing.
(we filled the kettle, but for some reason water is barely pouring out)
- Why’s the water barely coming out? (we filled the kettle, but for some reason water is barely pouring out)
- Why’s the water barely coming out?
- Maybe it’s so you don’t overfill your cup.
- Me and Victor Mikhailovich, being two heterosexual males,
will be sleeping in the same bed over the next six nights.
- Now I see, Mikhailovich!
- Here’s the thing. When you book a hotel in Europe, for example,
it makes no difference – one big bed or two small ones,
but that’s not the case in Japan, two separate beds cost twice as much as one large one.
We actually got a good discount for this room,
afterwards we were, like, maybe we should book one with two single beds?
We had a look – and even one single bed cost somewhere
around 100 thousand yen as opposed to 50.
That’s why we’ll be sleeping here,
being the two straight guys that we are.
Now we unpack our food.
We bought ourselves a bunch of weird sh*t.
I got myself some booze, and since Victor doesn’t drink...
- You’ll be drinking for the both of us. - Well, yeah, I mean no.
I’ll be drinking with the third participant of our voyage,
who we haven’t even introduced to you yet. His name is Valera.
I’m not sure about his sexual orientation, since
He... Immediately frees up thread.
But without him I’m not sure whether our trip would’ve even been possible.
Right, let’s unpack.
- C’mon man, you can’t pour tea from a pot or open a cake?
What’ve you got there?
- Looks like some sort of gingerbread. - I’m probably not gonna like it anyway.
It’s got some kind of doughy filling.
What else you got?
Some people unpack Chinese gadgets from Aliexpress
like that, while you’ve got some piece of sh*t.
- You’re definitely not going to like this.
- Thanks a lot. - These are your favorite red beans.
- You can have it.
Here we have some kind of bun. Victor says it’s pineapple.
Looks like this is what I’ll be eating today!
- Strong zero. Ok, so we’ve already had some heterosexual tea today,
and here we have some strong zero. It’s good.
Seriously, you don’t even feel the alcohol.
It’s just lemonade. Well, it obviously does contain some alcohol,
but you get the impression of drinking lemonade.
Give Valeriy Aleksandrovich some, if you don’t want to join me.
Valeriy Aleksandrovich, this one’s for you.
Keep yourselves clean and lubed.
While some drink tea, me and Valera are boozing.
The next episode of Dreamroad: Japan will be all about automotive culture.
We won’t be going to Ebisu, but we will embark on a rough trip
to a certain other legendary track called Twin Ring Motegi.
We’ll also be visiting Honda’s museum, where I’ll be filling you in on the history of the brand.