Do the things that we used to be able to do, like get a haircut or eat sushi.

But things are a little bit different than they were before, so today I wanted to show you a little bit of what Japan looks like coming out of its first wave off the Cove in 19 Pandemic.

I've lived in Kyushu for 15 years, and I've worked in Fukuoka for 10 and it is really just surreal to see what's happening right now.

Even though we left the state of emergency about 10 days ago going downtown, it still has not returned to its former glory, and I think that's for the best right now.

But it is very eerie, surreal, a little bit heartbreaking to see um, guys, a great city.

It's normally, um, just full of energy.

Young energy, lots of places to go shopping, lots of events happening, especially gearing up into summer.

There's usually a lot going on, and a lot to look forward to and all of that stuff.

It's just gone.

So walking downtown, Yeah, it is a little bit surreal.

It's not the city that I fell in love with, but it could be in the future.

I think right now it's probably for the best.

That things were not as exciting is that used to be the first thing I want to talk about his face masks, and this seems to be a controversial subject in different parts of the world.

I would say in Fukuoka, From what I've seen downtown, about 90% of people are now wearing face masks, and I think that that is because it's originally part of our culture.

Um, just out of courtesy to others.

If you don't know if you're sick, if you don't want to spread a cold that you have, um, if you don't want to catch anything, if the air is a little dry, there's many reasons to wear a mask.

But right now I think universally it's out of respect.

There's really no excuse not to wear a mask.

You don't have a mask, you can buy one.

It's actually finding a mask is not as impossible as it was before, so there's really no excuse not to have one.

You can buy handmade masks.

Lots of people are making masks and selling them.

Some of my favorite maths are reusable and they're nice.

They cover my face.

They're easy to where they're kind of cute.

Um, my friend made this one.

I love it.

And the societal pressure, I think to wear a mask is pretty strong in Japan.

Many of the shops that have re opened now say that you cannot come in if you're not wearing a mask.

Um, restaurants can refuse entry if you're not wearing a mask.

Masks are now mandatory to ride the subway if you're commuting to and from work within the city, and if you don't have one, you will be asked to purchase one at the subway station.

So there are many instances now where if you don't have a mask, you can't do the things that you used to do normally.

The things that you take for granted and it's not really some weird power or control thing, either.

It's just respect.

You just want to show that you're doing your part, not to make things worse.

Another thing that I'm seeing around town is a temperature monitoring, and this is done at the entrance of large buildings.

A lot of places have a system now with a like a thermal camera.

So when customers walk into an establishment, they can non invasively observed everyone's body temperatures.

And if anyone you know pings the radar is being a little bit, I think, higher than 37.6 or something.

Yeah, but it does help Make sure that nobody who is second should be at home is out outside doing things when they shouldn't be on.

For me, like as a citizen, knowing that shopping malls and big buildings are doing these thermal checks as people come in makes me feel safer about shopping there.

Next hand sanitizers.

Hand sanitizers are everywhere at the entrance of every building next to every cash register where you're dealing with money.

Even the other day, I went and got a kind 10 cities conveyor belt sushi, wondering what it would look like.

I went Teoh a kite in situ restaurant for lunch by myself, and it was surreal.

Every other seat is blocked off so that there's good distancing between people, their plastic barriers on the table to separate customers.

And they were no longer serving sushi on the conveyor belt.

But they did have hand sanitizer going around in circles.

I thought that was really creative and a little bit funny Anywhere along your route.

While you're out, you'll encounter hand sanitizer, so there's plenty of opportunities to clean your hands and wash your hands, and that makes me feel safe.

It's great.

So a lot of larger establishments businesses, um, like Zara or Muji or Uniqlo's have re opened.

But a lot of smaller businesses haven't yet.

I don't know if they're taking a break until June, and they're just waiting it out.

Or if there's a problem financially where they can't reopen travel agencies, of course, out of the question not open at the moment, they're completely shuttered as well.

Many shops and restaurants have pivoted to take out bentos uber EADS delivery anything to keep customers ordering without coming to the store.

Restaurants in the top floors off Takata Station were selling their bentos down on the first floor trying to make a sale.

However, even though the state of emergency ended over 10 days ago.

A lot of shops haven't reopened, and I find out a little bit worrying.

I really hope that some of my favorites can bounce back and get back to business really soon.

One thing that I find really interesting now is that Japan being a cash based society, is now very aggressively pushing cash list.

And that means like payments by credit card, visa pay, pay line paid paye payment, APS, even your, uh, transportation card, your I see card like a possible Or what's the Tokyo one sleep?

Uh, any.

I see cards that have money or credit on them.

They're encouraging people to use cash list payments so that there's less touching off money and coins.

It's something they probably should have done a while ago on.

I think that they were kind of leaning into it a bit up before the pandemic hit.

But now just the idea of not touching money is so appealing that there is a huge push for all payments to be cash list Now.

Since the state of emergency was lifted, Fukuoka has had 0 to 1 0 to 2 infections per day.

Ah, lot of days with zero infections, which was really, really good and encouraging.

But in the past three days they started Teoh bubble up again.

Looking at the data of the past few days, I'm a little concerned that we might be on her way into a second wave.

But hopefully I don't know.

I really don't know.

Hopefully, numbers stabilized or subside.

Um, and moving forward.

Each wave hits a little less hard.

Finally.

One interesting thing is that at the moment there are 120 countries.

I think maybe even more now on the banned list.

And that means that right now, for a lot of us, it is impossible to enter Japan.

And so, for those of you who are planning a trip sometime in the next few months, I'm not optimistic that restrictions will be completely lifted for everybody by the summer.

But hopefully late summer things will start to get moving again.

I think it depends on each country's individual ability to control the pandemic in their area.

So for places like the US and even Canada, I think it's gonna take a little bit longer before they're going toe.

Let people back into Japan from those countries unless they can get their infections under controls.

Nobody knows for sure what's going on right now, So it's really hard to know who.

Teoh.

Listen, Teoh And who didn't take advice from, um but yeah, yeah, hopefully you find this a little bit interesting.

I don't know.

I thought some people might want to see what life is like here.

Now that things are starting to shift a little bit, Onda, let me know what it's like, where you are.

All right, So that's it for today.

Thank you so much for watching.

Let me know how life is where you are.

And hopefully I'll talk to you again relatively soon.

Thanks so much for watching this video.

And I will update again, way.