Living with a Japanese Family – A Side of Japan Tourists Never See

Living with a Japanese Family – A Side of Japan Tourists Never See

When people think of Japan, they usually think of the famous landmarks and attractions found in cities like Tokyo, Osaka, or Kyoto. The energy of bustling crowds, the kaleidoscope of neon lights and a constant sensory overload, it’s easy to see why Japan receives millions of visitors each month.

And while these places are amazing and enjoyable, as we’ve proven true over the past two action-packed weeks, we are about to discover a side of Japan that tourists rarely get to see. The rural neighborhoods of small town Japan offer a unique perspective on Japanese life

But are often missed by visitors to Japan because these are the kinds of places that are best explored with a local. In this regard, we are very lucky. If you’ve been following our series from the beginning, you already know that

We’ve been on a journey from Tokyo towards Southern Japan to meet up with Mico’s brother and his family, who are also in Japan on a vacation from Canada. Our sister-in-law is Japanese and lived in Japan her whole life until moving to Canada just a few years ago when she married Mico’s brother.

She has invited us to join them on a visit to stay with her family in southern Japan and experience what it’s like to live in a rural part of the country. Without the help of a local, there is no way we would have been able to have

The unique experiences we are about to share with you. In this video, which will be a little different from our normal travel vlogs we try out small town life in Japan for ourselves and find the answers to questions like “why do people live in rural Japan instead of the country’s famous megacities?”

“What do people do for fun in the countryside?” “And what is life in Japan really like?” Our journey to the countryside starts in the vibrant city of Osaka where we say goodbye to our friend Clare and hop on a local flight towards southern Japan. Our plane is bound for Nagasaki on Kyushu Island

500 kilometers southwest of Osaka. Our final destination is a neighborhood called Seaside in the town of Isahaya a 30-minute drive from Nagasaki. While Isahaya isn’t the smallest city or town in Japan coming from metropolises like Osaka and Tokyo, Isahaya feels comparatively small. Upon arriving, we immediately sense this place has a different atmosphere.

It’s quiet, clean, and honestly, perfect. Looking at the streets, it feels like we’ve stepped into a movie. The neighborhood is modern looking, and yet it brings on a feeling of nostalgia and calmness that we haven’t experienced anywhere else in Japan. This is Sakura. She’s the main reason for our visit.

Eight months ago, she was born in Canada to Mico’s brother Joseph and his wife Yasue. Mico and I had been traveling since before Sakura was born so this was our first time getting to meet her. She looked a little grumpy to begin with

As she had just had a huge travel day from Canada. But she quickly warmed up to us and let Mico use her as a human prop to try his best impression of the claw game he played in Osaka. Try again! Come on, Saku! Yay! Yay!

Yasue’s family home is the first traditional Japanese house we’ve ever been in. It feels like any ordinary house, complete with kitchen living room, dining room, and bedrooms. However, some distinct differences signal that we are in Japan. The cool tatami mats, the funky-looking thermostat the motion-activated toilet seat, and the fancy self-filling bathtub.

Press that button. That goes there. Oh wow! I never would have even thought that was a button. – Press this button. – What does this do? What does it do? Done. Watch it fill up. That starts it? Yeah. Film that. It’s going to fill. And it acts as like a two-way circulator.

So like water will go in and make sure it keeps the same temperature and then it’ll go out again. Cool. Yasue’s family thoughtfully accommodated some Western comforts for us providing a Western-style bed and even labeling some commonly used household items in English, so we would easily know our way around the house.

Yasue’s parents warmly welcomed us into their home. We don’t speak Japanese, and they don’t speak a lot of English but despite this, they never hesitated to talk to us and teach us about Japan. You don’t eat that. Don’t eat that part. And then the seed is big.

But you just eat around the seed. It’s really good. We have more, by the way. The seed is so like… In there. We also took the opportunity to learn a classic Japanese game called Riichi Mahjong. It looks a little complicated at first, and the more we dug into it

The more we found that it is indeed as complicated as it looks. Are you for real right now? I beat Mico. Again. He’s been sitting here needing one tile for ages. I think the funniest part is that there are so many tiles and there’s so many characters to keep track of

But Nicole is the only one out of this group of four that continuously has to look at like the diagram to show what tile means what and somehow she just keeps winning. I’m faking. I remember them all. In our first few days at the house, relatives visited often, turning the home

Into a focal point for family fun, relaxation, and even piano lessons. This is Keisuke, one of Sakura’s cousins who came to visit every day after school. One day, we made homemade sushi together and he submitted a drawing of that experience to his school drawing contest and actually ended up winning an award.

Whether we were eating homemade sushi or miso soup, we quickly learned that Japanese home-cooked meals make you feel like you’re dining at a five-star restaurant. Wow, this looks amazing. We don’t know if this is just how Yasue’s mom cooks but the food preparation was always extravagant.

All right, you guys, today is a very exciting day because today is the day that Yasue and her family have organized for us to make mochi. I’m so excited to make it. We’ve had it before in Nara. It was absolutely delicious.

One of my favorite things I’ve eaten here in Japan, and I think it’s gonna be really, really neat to make our own in a very traditional style today. Of all the foods in Japan, there are few more culturally significant than mochi. Mochi is a traditional Japanese rice cake made from

A special type of rice called mochigome and is typically reserved for special occasions like New Year’s. Mochi can easily be made by machines and bought at the store but to give us the authentic Japanese experience Yasue’s family prepared a day of traditional mochi making for us.

So this is going to be the inside of the mochi ball. The outside is the rice and on the inside you get this delicious red bean paste. I’ve come to love this stuff. To start off, the rice is soaked and steamed overnight and then

Once it’s cooked, the fun and hard work really begins. So he’s like boiling the water there and then putting the hot water boiling water in here and then that heats up like almost like preheats the stone. Okay so that’s their normal. Whoa! It’s heavy.

So that’s the normal weight and this is a lighter version. So how heavy is the normal one? No idea. Look at the supervisor over there. My supervisor! How am I doing kid? Still hot, the cooked rice is placed into this tall mortar called an Usu. Wow! Perfect. We start right now.

We’re not wasting any time. To change the rice from individual grains into a dough-like substance it has to be mashed repeatedly. This is like working with Play-Doh. And it’s rice. And it’s food! Using wooden mallets called kine, Yasue and her dad taught us how to

Work as a team to pound the rice until it got soft and sticky. Up, down, up, then next person. Oh, me? Yeah. Hit once. Up. Hit once. Up. I’m worried I’m gonna hit my hand here. We eventually found our rhythm and successfully turned rice into paste.

It’s the sound of mochi making, he said. Awe, that’s cool. The mallets were way heavier than they look, and we were terrified to accidentally hit the hand of the person turning the sticky mass in the mortar. Nice. Don’t hit his hand. Remember, that one’s his sports hand. How’s it going? Good.

Tiring, but good. The big hammer is serious business. Was it heavy? Yeah! A little bit more. It still needs a little bit more. It needs a little bit more. Okay. You got this honey, you got this. The next step was to assemble the mochi by placing a ball of sweet red bean

Paste in the middle of our freshly pounded rice dough. The fruits of our labor. Oh? Oh man, that is so good. We did a good job. Oh my gosh, it’s like perfectly sticky. Oh my god. The rice on the outside is very gooey. Oh my gosh, it’s so good.

A few hours later, all the mochi balls were assembled and left to rest and dry. After a long day of mochi making, we were spoiled with a backyard barbecue Japanese style. Oh my gosh. If the person wants to eat, just put it on there. Oh, okay.

You can just eat like a chicken wing if you want. He was eating it like that too. During our visit, we started to get the impression that little baby Sakura was secretly trying to use her baby hacker skills to steal our email login details

And cancel our flights so we would stay in Japan with her forever. To protect against this clever girl, we always make sure we’ve enabled our Surfshark VPN. Surfshark is the sponsor of today’s video and they also happen to be our favorite VPN who has protected us against amateur baby hackers

And much scarier grown-up hackers all over the world. Using a VPN has many benefits, but our favorite has to be how we can use it to trick the internet into thinking that we are in a different country to unlock access to apps or websites that the country we are actually in

Is not allowing us to see. A recent example of this has to do with a guilty pleasure that we have just picked up, which is watching Survivor. To watch Survivor outside of Canada, we just set our virtual location to Canada

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Now let’s get back to Isahaya because we’ve still got tons of experiences to share with you. By this point, Mico and I had been traveling around Japan for more than two weeks experiencing a lot of fantastic food. While we thought we’d had a pretty authentic Japanese experience, we admit that

We’d mostly dined at touristy restaurants in touristy neighborhoods or we’d resorted to convenience store meals as a result of our very tight budget. Being off the tourist route now, however, gave us an opportunity to experience the real dining scene and eat like a local.

Joseph and Yasue took on the role of unofficial food tour guides and over the course of many days took us on a small food tour of sorts. Starting with a uniquely themed restaurant. Alright, welcome to the Bruce Lee themed restaurant.

So while there are some Bruce Lee items here, I wouldn’t say it’s like an overly themed restaurant, but it is really cool that it’s a tiny little restaurant very local, very Japanese feeling, and the ramen I can already smell, smells so good. So something that I’m loving about Japan is that

I really don’t feel like I fit in here. Like, I feel super out of place here. Like, where did this woman come from and why is she in, like, rural Japan at this restaurant? But no one looks at me. No one stares. It’s just fun. I’m just fine with it. It’s really refreshing.

Hi. Okay, so you might notice that the posters in here say ‘Bluce Lee’ and that’s because in Japanese there is no distinction between the L and the R that we use in English so ‘Bruce Lee’ is ‘Bluce Lee’. The spoon goes in your left hand, and the chopsticks in your right hand.

You can do it either like, you know, get some soup and like this or you put it like this. Whichever works. The spoon just helps you out. We’re just learning this now. I know, we’ve been in Japan how long? Oh my god! That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Wow, that’s so good.

We explored a couple more unique restaurants in Isahaya like this pizzeria situated in a barn. The pizza was amazing, and the setting ensured we were constantly entertained. That’s one of the last 40 remaining samurai horses in the world. It’s like a samurai horse is like a certain breed, and there’s only 40 left.

Aw, he’s so cute. And he looks so sleepy. He does look exhausted, doesn’t he? We also tried our very first yakiniku, or grilled meat, restaurant in Japan with some of Joseph’s old co-workers. Wow, look at you. You’re blending right in. That’s right. Joseph was formerly a language teacher with the JET program

Or Japan Exchange and Teaching Program. He taught English at a local high school and special needs school in Isahaya for three years, which is how he knows the area so well. Put it in the sauce. Goes in the sauce. And then you put it on the rice. Goes in the rice.

Goes in my mouth. Mmm. How’s that meat? Oh, look at that. The service. How’s the meat? So good. It’s so high quality. We probably should have taken a lesson or two from him before this dinner because once again, we found ourselves regretting our poor language skills

As we shared another amazing meal with new friends. There you go. Umai (Delicious)! After tasting the local cuisine in Isahaya, we also decided to venture off to nearby Nagasaki for some more delicious Japanese food. All right baby, where are we at?

We are at a, should I call it famous or is that excessive? Famous is good. Famous. The famous gyoza recipe in Nagasaki. Recipe? Restaurant. Okay, let me try again. We’re at a famous gyoza restaurant in Nagasaki. And we ordered 60 gyoza for four people, which sounded like a lot

But they’re not that big. They look amazing. They actually smell a lot like perogies to me, which is exciting. So when you eat it, Take this and just put it in. Oh, thank you. Okay. And then that’s it. Dump it. And what am I dumping it in? It’s gyoza sauce. Okay.

Dumping it in gyoza sauce. It’s a good thing you guys are here. I would never touch these sauces. So graceful. I think they’re meant to be eaten in one bite. That is delicious. What’s inside? Pork and green onion. That was really, really good. It was like bite-sized. Well, for me anyways.

Two bites for Nicole, but one bite for me. So we learned it’s actually also very popular, especially at this restaurant, and other kind of gyoza restaurants like this, to come after work and hang out with your co-workers or your boss and share some gyoza some fried chicken, and some beer.

A lot of beer. So there’s another group here, like 10 others. It looks like an after work function. And they’ve had a lot of gyoza and a lot of beer. Where the heck are we? Joseph and Yasue have taken us to another restaurant. This is an onigiri restaurant. Apparently they specialize in onigiri.

Which is like rice balls. Yeah. Filled of stuff. Can’t read it. I feel like… But also, it’s sideways. And it’s sideways. Yeah this way. I feel like of all the places we’ve traveled to Japan is the place where I’m most grateful to have people who speak the language and can read the language.

Because I think Japan is one of those places where you really miss these sorts of places if you don’t speak Japanese. We’re being super spoiled I just watched one of the guys make our onigiri order. What I didn’t realize is they have like a triangular stencil, and then the guy

Just shoves rice in there, uses his thumb to make a little hole, puts in all the fillings, and then packs it up with rice and seaweed, and he does it all in like that was like 30 seconds to make three of them, averaging 10 a second. That was really, really fast.

That’s really tasty. It’s just so much more fresh than the ones that you can get at Family Mart or 7-Eleven or the convenience stores. It’s really really good. I really like that it’s warm. That feels essential to my happiness when I eat onigiri now. I don’t think I like them cold as much.

I don’t think I could ever go back. Liar. Just kidding! As amazing as these dishes were, the best food experience we had in Japan was a five-course meal at a nearby ryokan which if you didn’t know, is like a traditional Japanese inn. Yasue’s family said we couldn’t leave Japan without visiting a ryokan

And we are glad that we listened. That adventure deserves its own video, though, so make sure you subscribe if you wanna see what that experience is like. Beyond family gatherings, making mochi, and dining at hidden gems you might wonder if living in a small city like this would eventually become dull.

Our sister-in-law, Yasue, wanted to assure us that even in these lesser-known parts of Japan, there are ways to get your adrenaline pumping. So after a little bit of prep at home the night before, we packed up the car and headed down to the pier.

Water sports are pretty popular in southern Japan because the weather’s amazing and our activity of choice this morning is wakeboarding. I’m so scared. Looking good! Do I look the part at least? I feel like a superhero. A big superhero. The wetsuit that they got for me was a little bit too small.

Well, we’re just using families. So we’re using Yasue’s older suit that was too big for her. But it’s still very tight on me. This is freaking me out a little bit. It just sounds intense. Yeah, first time ever. I just feel like there’s a lot of room for falling and face planting.

But I checked at our insurance, Safety Wing, it covers this activity. So I feel, I actually feel so much better. Like I’m properly nervous I’m going to hurt myself, but I’m covered. It’s fine. So at least it’ll be paid for. This didn’t mean to be a Safety Wing plug. No.

But they’re our travel insurance and I guess they cover wakeboarding. So thank goodness we have it. Honestly, I’m really nervous. This was mine and Mico’s first time ever trying wakeboarding and it went about as well as we expected. Mico, after numerous attempts, had only succeeded in drinking a lot of ocean water.

His big excuse was that all the gyoza made him a little front heavy. I couldn’t do it but… My wakeboarding career has already ended before it began. It was really fun. It was nice to be in the water though. I, on the other hand, had a bit of a rough start.

But then eventually… Good job Nicole! Not quite as graceful as the first one. Amazing! I got you in the slow-mo for that one. Oh my god! Thanks guys! That was fun! She did amazing. Way better than me. You did good! She’s just naturally good.

This is exactly what happened when we started learning mahjong for the first time and Nicole wins three games in a row. As for Yasue, well, here’s a fun fact. She was once the Women’s National Wakeboarding Champion of Japan. She’s now retired from her professional career in wakeboarding, but for someone

Who no longer lives near the ocean and had a baby eight months ago we think she’s still got it. Awesome! So good! I got it on the drone! If you watched our time in Osaka, you already know that many Japanese people love baseball.

Yasue’s dad plays in a small league with other seniors in the community and one morning, he invited Mico to join their club’s practice. Mico hadn’t thrown or batted a baseball since grade school but playing in a community league with seniors, how hard could it be? These guys are intense.

How are they so active? It’s eight… Seven or eight in the morning, and they’re like… They’re just chilling. I didn’t even bring any water. Well, turns out, these are not ordinary seniors. The speed, stamina, and energy of all the players had us convinced that they too were former professional athletes.

However these guys got so good, we unanimously agreed that this is the bar we should be aiming for when we get to our 60s and 70s. One of our last outings was to visit a Japanese choir group that Joseph was a part of when he was living here.

He sang with them for almost three years, and they participated in fairly big concerts together, and were even on TV at one point. There he is right there. We went to one of the group’s practices so that they could meet Sakura

And we could see for ourselves what the hype for this rural choir group was all about. Now Mico and I are not necessarily the most musical people, but soon after walking in, we could tell some music magic was about to happen. Sakura said her hellos, and in the most choir-group way possible

The men responded. ♪ Let all men sing. ♪ ♪ Lift every voice. ♪ ♪ Let all men sing. ♪ ♪ And rejoice. ♪ ♪ Let all men sing and make a joyful sound. ♪ ♪ Lift every voice. Glorious praise abound. ♪

The sense of community and camaraderie were palpable, which only added to how special we felt as the only audience members at this private performance. ♪ Ma n’atu sole ♪ ♪ cchiù bello, oje ne’ ♪ ♪ ‘o sole mio ♪ ♪ sta nfronte a te! ♪

The emotion we felt from their singing was pretty indescribable. We couldn’t understand any of the words, but we had the kind of goosebumps that you feel lingering for days. One of the main draws for us to travel is experiencing a culture firsthand and gaining a new understanding of another way of life.

The weeks we spent in Isahaya learning about what life is like in this beautiful corner of the world were some of our favorite authentic travel experiences to date. The combination of trying new things, eating amazing food every day meeting new people, and being with family

Made our time in this quiet rural neighborhood fly by. In the next video we will be back to our regular vlogging style as we continue our exploration of Japan, this time by trying out a Japanese ryokan for the first time.

So be sure to hit subscribe if you haven’t already and we will catch you in the next one. Thanks for watching!

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We are meeting our Japanese Family in rural Japan to experience what life in the countryside is really like! After the hustle and bustle of Japanese cities, we are so excited to finally be meeting up with our family in Isahaya to experience the Japan no one sees. Without the help of a local, there is no way we would have been able to see this side of Japan. We went way off the tourist trail and explored a corner of this beautiful country that foreigners always miss.

If you missed the full story of our Japanese family, head over the this video to get caught up: https://youtu.be/cNMFB0jS_tk

We are so lucky to have a sister in law who is Japanese and who lived in Japan her whole life up until about 4 years ago. She was kind enough to invite us to her parents’ home near Nagasaki, and we jumped at the chance to visit a proper Japanese home, and experience what life in this part of Japan is like. As tourists, we rarely get to have travel experiences as authentic as this one, and we felt very lucky to learn about Japan and spend time with family while we were at it.

Over the course of two weeks, we had so many unique experiences in rural Japan. Even just having the chance to live in a proper Japanese house and eat homemade Japanese food was such an experience! Tatami mats, automatic toilet seats, and 10-item meals were things we knew nothing about before being welcomed into a Japanese home.

Making mochi the traditional way was one of our favourite activities of our stay. Together with our family, we made mochi from scratch using the traditional methods of mashing rice and hand-forming the mochi balls. It was hard work, and it took a lot of time, but we made some of the best mochi in all of Japan (in our humble opinion).

Japanese food is one of the main reasons anyone visits Japan, and during our time in rural Japan we tried some of the best Japanese food of our entire trip. We had fresh onigiri and gyoza in Nagasaki, tried okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake) for the first time, visited the strangest ramen shop, and shared yakiniku (Japanese BBQ) with new friends.

We also learned that living in rural Japan means having a very active life. From wakeboarding to baseball, our time living like locals in Japan gave us that chance to try out a few new sports and discover a lot about the Japanese way of life.

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== Chapters ==
0:00 First impressions of real Japanese life
6:00 Making mochi the traditional way
12:00 Japanese food tour!
19:04 Well that was epic…
24:33 The most wholesome way to end our visit

#traveljapan #ruraljapan

Hey there! We are Nicole and Mico and in March 2021, we quit our jobs, sold our belongings, and began traveling the world! We never thought we’d be making travel vlogs on YouTube, but after realizing that we had a unique opportunity to share our adventure and make the world feel more familiar and inviting to anyone watching, we took the leap and picked up the camera! We hope our videos show how wonderful, delicious, and friendly the world can be.