An American in Tokyo: Culture Shock & Travel Tech

TL;DR

Moving to a new country is a shock. Japan's hyper-efficiency, strict social rules, and incredible food live up to the hype, but getting settled is a serious challenge. #VentureStep #Japan #Travel

INTRODUCTION

Have you ever dreamed of picking up your life and moving somewhere completely new? ¹ For most, it remains a fantasy, but for entrepreneurs and tech professionals in a remote-first world, it's an increasingly tangible reality. However, the dream often glosses over the chaotic, stressful, and sometimes comical reality of navigating a foreign country for the first time, especially one as distinct as Japan.

In this episode of Venture Step, host Dalton Anderson shares his raw, first-hand account of his first few days living in Tokyo. ²Drawing on lessons learned from a previous month-long stay in Mexico City, Dalton dives into the initial culture shock and practical hurdles he faced. ³From the grueling 16-hour flight to the nerve-wracking experience of being lost in Shinjuku with unresponsive hosts, his story is a candid look at the challenges that precede the adventure. ^4444444

Beyond the initial struggles, this episode is packed with fascinating observations on Japanese culture, efficiency, and social etiquette. Dalton breaks down everything from the unexpected process of ordering ramen from a vending machine to the country's world-class public transit and the non-negotiable tech—like eSIMs and VPNs—that every modern traveler needs to make their journey smoother. 55555

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Preparation is Key: Arriving in a new country without reliable internet or a clear plan for reaching your accommodation can lead to hours of stress. An eSIM should be the first thing you set up. ⁶⁶⁶
• Efficiency is a Way of Life: Japan's public systems, from its famously punctual trains to its clever grocery store checkout process, are designed for maximum efficiency and social order. ⁷⁷⁷
• Respect and Order are Paramount: Japanese culture emphasizes public harmony. This is evident in the quiet train cars, the meticulous trash disposal rules, and specific etiquette for handling items like bags and coats in restaurants. ^8888888
• Food Culture Has Its Own Rules: Simple acts like ordering ramen involve a unique process with vending machine tickets, and slurping your noodles is considered normal, not rude. ⁹⁹⁹
• Essential Tech for Modern Travel: A reliable VPN is crucial for accessing region-locked content and services, while an eSIM offers a more flexible and often cheaper alternative to Wi-Fi pucks for staying connected. ^{101010101010101010}

FULL CONVERSATION

Dalton Anderson: Welcome to VentureStep podcast where we discuss entrepreneurship, industry trends and the occasion book review. ¹¹Have you ever dreamt of just picking up your life and moving somewhere completely new? ¹² I'm sure we all have. I'm temporarily staying in Japan and Seoul in South Korea. ¹³This would be a cool episode to talk about the different culture that I've experienced since settling in. I've only been here for a couple of days now, but I've been out and about the whole time. ¹⁴

Lessons Learned from Traveling Abroad

Dalton Anderson: I was also going to talk about what are some things that you should probably put together to make things a bit easier for yourself in a foreign country. ¹⁵ I've done this twice now. The first time I lived in Mexico City for one month in January, so this is my second time. ¹⁶I learned some lessons from last time, some to do's and don'ts. ¹⁷Mexico City is a little bit, I would say, you have to be more cautious on what you're doing. ¹⁸But I wouldn't subscribe to the idea that Mexico City is inherently dangerous as long as you're not doing stupid stuff. ¹⁹Anywhere can be dangerous if you're doing things that you shouldn't be doing, especially in a place where you don't know the language and you're not familiar with the laws. ²⁰

The 16-Hour Flight That Wrecks Your Body

Dalton Anderson: When I initially traveled here, it's a 16-and-a-half-hour flight from where I live in Florida. ²¹

The flight is devastating. I think the longest flight I've ever been on is maybe five hours. ²²

Dalton Anderson: My headphones were broken. I had a book to read, but there's only so much reading and sleeping I can accomplish in 16 hours. 23You get here and you're basically in the future because you're 13 hours ahead, and then you were traveling for 16 and a half hours. 24 So you're just in a different world. You leave in the morning the day before and you get there two days later in the afternoon. 25The first couple of days I was sore not even from exercising, I was just sore from sitting. 26

The Nightmare of Finding My Apartment

Dalton Anderson: I'm living in a place called Shinjuku. ²⁷It's a hip district with younger people, bars, and clubs. ²⁸The idea was that since they have a lot of nighttime activities, I'll be able to do stuff at night because next week I am going to be working Eastern time. ^29292929 I had insane trouble finding my place. I messaged my host the day of, "Hey, I'm traveling. I'll be there the next day at this time." She's like, "OK, cool." ³⁰ Then I land, "Hey, I just touched down. I'm going to be making my commute over." She's like, "Yeah, of course." ³¹ Then I get there an hour and a half later and I'm messaging her, "Hey, I can't find the place. The address isn't working." And then she doesn't message me. ³²

Dalton Anderson: I keep searching for another 40 minutes and message her again. "Hey, I really need help here. I'm stuck." 33 After another 30 minutes, I was like, "I need something here. I've got nothing and I seriously need help. I can't find the place that I paid for." And she didn't respond. 34I was in between just booking another place for the night and figuring it out in the morning because I was traveling with three suitcases. 35 I searched for two and a half hours and I kept messaging my host. At a certain point I was like, "I might have gotten scammed here."

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. ³⁶

Dalton Anderson: My host never responded. ³⁷The 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. ³⁸So I just went from 7-Eleven to 7-Eleven. ³⁹Then I was looking through the listing and there's this Google link with a small photo of the building. ⁴⁰Eventually I found the building that I'm staying in, but it took me forever and I was worried I got scammed. ⁴¹That was my first impression of Japan, and it was very difficult because I didn't have good internet access. ⁴²

First Cultural Encounter: The Ramen Vending Machine

Dalton Anderson: I went and got some ramen, and this is the first thing that I noticed. The guy was telling me in Japanese, but basically he's like, "You can't sit here." ⁴³I didn't understand, so I just observed the other people coming in. ⁴⁴A lot of these ramen shops have these vending machines. ⁴⁵You put in your money—a lot of them are cash only—and you select what you want, and it pops out a ticket. ⁴⁶You provide that ticket to the assistant, and they will ask you some questions, like how do you want your noodles? ⁴⁷Once you answer, the assistant hands the ticket over to the cook. ⁴⁸ They won't let you sit down until you go to the vending machine. I didn't know that. ⁴⁹ So that was a shock. I was like, okay, that's actually pretty sick. ⁵⁰

Why Tokyo is the Cleanest Mega-City on Earth

Dalton Anderson: The food, I would say, is insanely good. ⁵¹ I think Tokyo lives up to the hype with being super clean. For the amount of people that live here—I think it's close to 40 million people—the city is so clean and they don't have any issues with trash and the streets smelling. ⁵²

For the amount of people that live here, the city is so clean and they don't have any issues really with trash. ⁵³

Dalton Anderson: People don't litter here. ⁵⁴Trash is a big deal here, the culture of taking care of your trash. ⁵⁵When I was playing soccer, I got a meal and I was like, "Hey, where do I put this?" because there are no trash cans. ⁵⁶And he's like, "You really can't throw this out here. It's going to smell and there's not really a place for you at the mall to throw it out. You have to throw it out at your house." ⁵⁷Trash is a big deal; they take it really seriously. ⁵⁸

Navigating the World-Class Tokyo Train System

Dalton Anderson: The public transportation in Tokyo is insane. ⁵⁹I've read that the train system in Tokyo is world-class, and from my experience of spending probably six hours on the train in the last couple days, it is insanely good. ⁶⁰⁶⁰⁶⁰It is always on time. ⁶¹ I've never had it delayed. The signage and what to do is pretty straightforward. ⁶²

The public transportation in Tokyo is insane. ⁶³

Dalton Anderson: It's packed, but people are respectful. No one is playing music without headphones. 64People aren't being absurd and obnoxious. 65 Everyone keeps to themselves. It seems like everyone is very respectful and kind. 66 When I was getting out of the train, my baggage fell. No joke, like 30 people were already on it. My suitcase was up before I could do it myself. It was just super nice. 67676767

Debunking Stereotypes About Japanese People

Dalton Anderson: You might hear that Japanese people are less expressive, but I think it depends on the social environment. ⁶⁸On the train station, everyone keeps to themselves and is super respectful. ⁶⁹There's thousands of people there and it's not very loud. ⁷⁰It's very quiet and peaceful. ⁷¹But I did play pickup soccer and volleyball for about seven hours. ⁷²From my experience, the people are very expressive in their emotions. ⁷³I do think that that stereotype probably doesn't live up to expectations. ⁷⁴People really like to share their food and culture. ⁷⁵Everyone is super helpful, trying to get me to eat some food or try new things and give suggestions. ⁷⁶

Unique Food Customs and Etiquette

Dalton Anderson: The language barrier is quite tough. ⁷⁷In Japan, I can't read Japanese at all and I don't know any Japanese, so I have complete reliance on Google Translate. ^78787878The food customs are pretty straightforward. ⁷⁹When you're drinking the soup and the noodles, you're supposed to slurp up the noodles. ⁸⁰In the US, people find that rude. ⁸¹But in Japan, you're supposed to do that. ⁸²

Dalton Anderson: Another thing is you don't put your jacket on your chair at the table. ⁸³There's a special spot that you put your jacket. ⁸⁴Also, if you come in with a bag in a restaurant, they'll make you put it in a basket. ⁸⁵And when you're handing stuff to people, you want to hand it to them with two hands. ⁸⁶If you're handing someone your credit card, you need to hold it out with two hands, and if you're getting it back, you hold it with two hands. ⁸⁷

The Traveler's Tech Toolkit: eSIMs and VPNs

Dalton Anderson: I am going to talk about things that I think would make things easier. ⁸⁸There is some popularity of these things called Wi-Fi pucks, but the issue with that is it's quite expensive, like $16 a day. ^89898989The other alternative is called an eSIM, which is an electronic SIM card. ⁹⁰You don't need a physical SIM and you don't need a new number. ⁹¹I am using an eSIM company called Airalo. ⁹²The next thing I did is I got a VPN. ⁹³I just re-enabled my VPN with NordVPN. ⁹⁴A VPN is super easy to put together for yourself, and it makes it easier to navigate the world when you're outside of the world that you live in. ⁹⁵You'll get different things on Netflix, and you might not be able to do certain things on websites you're trying to shop on if they are region-locked. ⁹⁶

Final Thoughts

Dalton Anderson: I think the city is amazing. It's super cool, very clean. The people are very generous. Awesome, fun place to be. ⁹⁷

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 let my mind rest because there's so much stuff going on. ⁹⁸

Dalton Anderson: You can do anything at any hour, pretty much. Your options are unlimited. 99Have a good evening, good afternoon, good morning, wherever you are in this world. 100I appreciate you listening to this episode and hope that you listen in next week. 101

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• eSIM Providers: Airalo, Ubigi, Saily
• VPN Provider: NordVPN
• Cities Mentioned: Tokyo, Seoul, Mexico City, New York City, West Palm Beach, Miami
• Transportation Systems: Tri-Rail System (Florida), Gateway Program
• Other: Netflix, Insta360, GoPro, 7-Eleven

INDEX OF CONCEPTS

Dalton Anderson, VentureStep, Japan, Tokyo, Seoul, South Korea, Mexico City, Shinjuku, Mount Fuji, Florida, New York City, Miami, West Palm Beach, USA, Europe, Thailand, eSIM, Airalo, Ubigi, Saily, VPN, NordVPN, Wi-Fi Puck, Google Translate, Google Maps, Netflix, Insta360, GoPro, 7-Eleven, Family Store, Tri-Rail System, Gateway Program, ramen, futsal, pickup soccer, pickup volleyball