修学旅行で初めての日本！海鮮料理に驚きまくる！

Nice to meet you! How are you doing? Good. I'm happy to be here. I'm very hungry. My name is Cormac. I'm from the United States. We are here in Tokyo with a school trip. Oh, really? How long have you been in Japan so far? This is our third week here. My name is Adrian. Hello, my name is Samuel. I'm Kate. We're so excited to be here. Is this your first time in Japan? Yes. How are you enjoying being in Japan? Very fun. Do you also like Japanese food? Yes, very good. I have not had one bad food here. You are trying a Japanese seafood restaurant today. Oh, this is the restaurant we're trying today. We haven't been to a seafood restaurant in Japan yet. Oh, really? Can you help me? Thank you. Very cool. It smells like fish. That's what we're here for. Is it in a good way? I'm hungry, so it's in a very good way. We spent most of our time in Tochigi, so not as much fish there. Really? You sailed in Tochigi? Do they have good beef, vegetables, and food? Speaking of food, what is your favorite Japanese food? Probably just ramen. It's a basic answer. I haven't had any Japanese food before I came here. So all the food I tried here was pretty much new for me. The thing I like most is the rice with the tofu skin. The sweet part. Inari sushi. It's so good. I could eat like 10 of those. I didn't like sushi very much before we came here, but having real sushi that's not from America is very good. I like it way better now. Do you like sushi now? I would say also I really like ramen, but also the tempura. Where are you from in America? We're all from the Midwest. We're all like 2 hours away from Chicago. Did you grow up eating fish or not at all? We're not French. How are you feeling about your time in Japan? I don't want to leave. The trip has been too short. I like Japan a lot. I don't know. I just enjoyed my time here. You told me that you're hungry now, right? First of all, I have to go order the food. You guys can talk. Talk about Japan maybe. It's been a very interesting trip to see Tokyo, and seeing a little of Japan. We've seen the contrast. I think we've seen the diversity in culture a little differently here. I will say Japanese culture is a lot similar to the US, but I think there's a lot of differences. A lot of respect. I love bowing. It's so respectful. Everything's more reserved. We always feel like we're the loudest people. I feel bad. Everywhere we are. I know. I try to be much quieter. People kind of mind their own business more and keep to themselves. In the US, there's a lot more. You just kind of get in other people's face. There's more consideration here. There is food that you cannot eat. You eat everything. I eat everything. I'm really excited to eat. Me too. Tokyo is easily the biggest city. Even Chicago, the suburbs of Chicago are nothing like the suburbs of Tokyo. The suburbs of Tokyo, it feels like you're still in the middle of the city. It's like Chicago, LA, New York combined. That's Tokyo. It's wild. What's wrong with this food? I'm really hungry. What did you guys talk about? We were just kind of rambling, to be honest. It's been three weeks. You already know a lot about Japan, right? Being someone from Chicago, I will say people in Chicago and people in Tokyo are very different. If you come from America, the first thing you'll notice is people are a lot more considerate about what you have to do. If you go to a 7-Eleven and you get something to drink, they're not going to say thank you. Here, they always say have a good day. I think the culture around respecting other people is a little different. I don't speak Japanese, so there is a language barrier. I've even been surprised by that. Going to restaurants or stores, one thing is they always ask if you want a bag. Make sure you know. They try and help you communicate. People who don't speak English very well still will try to speak to you in English. In America, I feel like if we see someone who doesn't speak our language, we just won't talk to them. Or we assume that they should speak English. Or just say, you're in America, you need to speak English. It's a lot of people's opinion. It's nice that people want to connect with you. Everybody always says, and I don't know why Japanese people do this, they always say, sorry, my English is really bad. Then they have really good English. It's so good. Everybody's always, sorry, my English is bad. They don't need to say that, right? Their English is good. The fact that they know enough to say my English is really not good, that's more than I can say when I try to speak. I can't apologize for you Japanese people. I'll also say one thing I really appreciate about Japan is being someone from America, our culture has only been around for 300 years. The way Japanese people have been living in the same society for thousands of years, they can interact, and the way they interact and they treat each other with respect is very different. In the U.S., we're just trying to understand who we are in a lot of things. I think Japan has that figured out. Your cultural identity, you guys have that part figured out. That's why I think Tokyo and Japan is very safe. You have lived together for so long, you understand what it means to live together. In America, we're still trying to figure that out. There's still conflict here, I think there's conflict everywhere, but I think there's a deep respect for everybody because you guys are very much the same people. Your ancestors are the same. Anything surprise you about Japanese people? Something that surprised me was food portions. There's so much food. Even at fast food places that we also have in the U.S., everything is just less. I think that goes back to one thing I really appreciate about Japan is Japanese people are very health conscious. They think about what goes in their body and they really care. The food here is a lot cleaner than the United States. The diet here is a lot very different. I think people just care more about what they eat. When you went to the United States, what did you see the differences? I'm curious what differences you saw. I think American people are more louder, happier, and more cheerful. I think a very big difference between Japanese culture and American culture is showing emotion in public. It's very different in Japan. In America, that's why we're so loud and very energetic because we're more used to showing happy emotions. In America, you'll see people fighting in the street, laughing in the street. Every emotion. People having a breakdown, crying. As Japanese people, we have to hide what we really think, so we don't really say what we think. I think it's just a respect thing. I think Japanese people don't want to be so outspoken because they want to respect everybody else. They don't want to bother. In America, we kind of don't really care if we disrespect other people. I don't think it's necessarily about disrespect, but I would just say not in a bad way, but people don't... I just don't care. I don't really care if somebody else sees me sad because I don't know them. It won't affect my life if they see me sad. That's kind of what you talked about earlier about consideration. I think that just in general, people in the United States are less considerate and maybe not necessarily in a bad way, but they don't think about how this is going to affect somebody else. I think there can be good and bad things. Food's coming! This is so good. Is it rude to smell food? You can't smell food! Okay, I didn't know. Is that miso soup? Oh my word. Look at that piece of salmon. That's the biggest piece of salmon I've ever smelled in my life. I'm going to just... Are you alright? Thank you! It's the biggest shrimp I've ever seen in my life. Shrimp is big! That's wild. I'm so excited. I want to eat all of it right now. This is deep-fried shrimp. This is a traditional Japanese dish called nitsuke, salmon belly. It's the fattiest part of salmon. I've never had salmon belly. The first thing is first. Do you know which kind of fish it is? I don't know. The things that we don't really live... Where we live, there's not much freshness. Any fish that we have is like frozen fish. This is bonito. You've never seen the fish flakes on top of takoyaki? No, we have not. Oh, anywhere! You're leaving tomorrow, you said? Oh my gosh! You're missing so many Japanese foods! Now we have to come back. Anyway, this is a bonito. The fish that you've never tried before. Let's try it, shall we? Let's try with ginger on top. Ready? Oh my word! It goes... I thought it was going to be more chewy than it was. That is good. That's so good. The skin has a lot of flavor. Oh my gosh. Is it fire? Yes. Really? Oh my goodness. That was so good. It wasn't fishy. Oh my gosh, I'm so happy. He likes it. I think you're going to like this one, Dan. This is also bonito. But it's deep fried. I would love it, Dan. Can you see something on top? Is that ginger? I don't know what it is. This is grated radish. Radish? We're done. I don't need to eat anything else. Really? Oh my gosh. That was fire. I don't even have words. Do you like the radish on top? It's refreshing, yeah? That is the best fish I've ever had in my life. I swear. I'm not even lying. That has to be the best fried fish I've ever had. In my 20 years on this, I promise you. That was so good. That's a strong statement. I don't lie. I'm being honest. It's fried, but it's not heavy. Fried food in the U.S. is very light. It gets you, but it's very refreshing. It goes with rice, yeah? That's good. I'm really curious what this is. If I look at that, it looks like mashed potatoes. This is grated radish. Oh, it's radish. Because the belly part of salmon is so fatty and juicy, the radish freshness helps. It's the same as salmon. Can you see? Oh my word, yeah. That looks really good. I've never seen fish like that. Here it comes. I'm going to try the soup. It's so good. Fire. Oh my word, that looks so good. You got a big piece. It's so good. Oh my gosh, that's so good. It's good. That's crazy good. It's so wonderful. The texture is way better. I don't believe you. This can't be salmon. You took me somewhere else. This is not salmon. It's so good. The salmon belly is... I've never had salmon belly before. I don't want to say earlier about the other fish, but this is the best fish I've ever had. It's going to keep changing. It's really good. It's really salty too. That's why it goes with the rice. I'm so happy. Oh my god, thank you. It was amazing. Imagine if they took salmon and in between each part of the muscle grain, they put butter in it. It just tasted like butter. And salty too. It's so roasty. Not very fishy. I would hate to have a seafood allergy right now. I don't know what that is, but it looks so good. It looks like tartar sauce. There's a lot of eggs inside. And mayo. With Japanese pickles. Everyone watching is jealous. It's so crispy. It's so good. Very good. Those are very big shrimp. Oh wait, I didn't eat the head. Do you regret it? Better or worse? Be honest. That was amazing. These are so crispy. It just tastes like chips. Normally I do not like the shrimp very much that we have in New York. That was very good. There's just a huge difference between fresh seafood and seafood that was fished four weeks ago. How is your Japanese food experience going? Amazing. It's so good. It's also interesting to see the differences between the Japanese food that you can buy in the US and what we actually had here. Last but not least. This is a traditional Japanese dish. Nitsuke. The sauce is like teriyaki sauce made from soy sauce, sake, sugar, and broth. Is it sweet? Let's cut it. You don't need a knife. We don't need a knife. We need a chopstick. I've been most excited about eating this. Do we put it with rice? Yes, you can eat it with rice. The sauce is amazing. It almost tastes like barbecue. I don't know. It's so good. It does have that sort of barbecue like sweet sauce. It's so good. The egg you said? Yes, that was so good. I'm so happy. It's so good. It's interesting because none of it tastes very fishy. This all has its own flavor. It's different. It doesn't just taste like fish. You tried everything today. How was the experience for you guys? Very fun. Thank you so much. So appreciated. This is very special. I think it's special because you literally could not get this. This is just so different. You can only get this in Japan. Amazing. I love this place. This is a very good end to our trip here. I'm so happy I could meet you. Please come back to Japan again. Yes.